Teaching your preschooler to express her emotions and recognize emotions in others is a huge part of her development. Unfortunately, this tends to get lost in all the attention that’s paid to getting her alphabet and numbers right.

Teaching her to recognize emotional reactions in others develops compassion in your child. Compassion is hardly an inborn trait – it has to be taught, and it’s just as important as intellectual development. What use is intellect if a child has no trace of empathy or compassion for another’s pain.

Identifying her emotions also helps your preschooler gain better control of herself. She may still have tantrums, but they won’t be as intense or as frequent as before. Use emotions to help your child understand what she is feeling, and what she needs to do to make her feel better.

1. If your child has a bad dream, put your hand on her heart and let her know you will always be in there. Tell her to place her hand on her heart every time she needs you, or feels afraid. It will comfort her. Tell her to do this every time she feels sad, angry, frustrated – it will help her understand the signs of an oncoming tantrum, and will help control tantrums better.
2. Role play and act out different life situations – happy ones, sad ones, frightening ones. Ask her to express these emotions with facial gestures as best she can. Ask her what faces she makes when she’s angry or sad or happy.
3. Use stories and rhymes to talk about emotions and feelings. For instance “Itsy Bitsy Spider” can be used to teach the power of persistence and the desire to succeed,” or Amazing Grace” can be used to teach her the power of self belief.
4. Discuss important memories in your lives. Talk about how you felt on your wedding day, when she was born, how she feels on her birthday.
5. Ask her to recount occasions when she feels, happy, sad or scared. They give you clues into her emotional state.
6. Teach her about happy places. It may seem like psychobabble, but children are comforted at the thought of being in a place where they are safe from harm or fear.
7. Use puppets to introduce emotions in storytelling. While reading bed time stories, change your voice with the emotions of the character.
8. Discuss the emotions of each character in the stories you read. Why is that little boy sad? Why dos the lamb feel afraid?
9. Don’t belittle her fears or brush them off. A bad dream is very real to your child. Talk about it with her and comfort her. Don’t just say “Oh, it’s nothing” and let that be that.
10. Keep an hour or so to spend with your child doing something she loves – putting a puzzle together, cooking etc.
11. Discuss times when you got angry with her. Let her know the reason for your reaction - Yesterday, you did this and this, and so Mommy became angry with you. Let her know that her behaviors have consequences.
12. This one’s a no brainer to raise an emotionally well adjusted child. Always tell her you love her. Even when you need to correct her behavior by scolding her, make a distinction between the scolding and the fact that you love her. She needs to know your love will last whatever mistakes she may make in her life.

Kids don’t know the right way to express anger, although they are capable of feeling all the same things we do. It’s up to you to teach your child the right way to express her feelings. Raising a child is not just about discipline and learning pursuits - a child needs to develop a strong sense of compassion and caring for others. This is something she carries with her to adulthood.