Pumpkin Feeling Faces Part II

As promised, here is an additional way to use Pumpkin Feeling Faces to help increase your child's social emotional intelligence. Rather than tying off the top of the pumpkins as suggested in the last post, leave them open so that you can play the following game:

1. On strips of paper, write down situations and have your child draw them out of a bag, or better yet, a plastic pumpkin, and decide what the person in the situation would be feeling. Here are some examples:

"Somebody knocked down Susie's block tower."

"Miko got a brand new bike as a birthday present."

"Sam had to stay home from the party because he had a cold."

"Josie's family got a brand new puppy."

"Tamikah's friend grabbed a toy from her hands."

"Mark's mom told him he could invite a friend over after school."

Come up with some more of your own. If your child is not yet a reader, read them out loud to her.

2. When your child(ren) are playing the game, keep in mind that two different children may come up with a different feeling. For example, one child might say that Susie would be mad when somebody knocked down her block tower. Another child might say she would have felt sad. Yet another child might say she felt mad AND sad. All feelings are valid. It is important to point out to children that different people can have different feelings after experiencing the same event. It is also important to point out that people can have more than one feeling at a time!

3. Once your child decides which feeling the person is experiencing in the situation, have her put that slip in the matching bag (ie, mad, sad, glad). For younger children , it is better to limit the feelings to a few common ones, as mentioned above.

4. When you are done with the game, add some extra newspaper to "stuff" the pumpkins and then tie them off with some string or twine! Viola...Pumpkin Feeling Faces!

Spin-Doctor Tip: The Spin-Doctor is all about preventing sibling squirmishes. Because kids may come up with different feelings regarding the situation, have the child who drew the slip of paper make the ultimate decision as to which pumpkin the slip of paper should go into.

PS - Where does the time go? I posted the original Pumpkin Feeling Faces well over a week ago, thinking I'd get back to this a few days later, but here we are. Anyone with some ideas on slowing down time?