05/08/2023
Small to Big Feeling Dots is another great resource from Australian Childhood Foundation. Supporting children to develop feelings vocabulary and to speak 'about' their feelings rather than just to 'behave them out loud' is an important skill for wellbeing and healthy relationships. When children are able to label and describe their feelings they are less likely to be overwhelmed by them - or 'name it to tame it' as Dan Siegel says.
These scaling images are helpful because not only do they help differentiate between different feeling states, but they also provide a way of communicating about different intensities of feeling states in a way that is young child friendly.
"Here are some feeling pages that each go from small to big for six feelings- Happy, Sad, Scared, Angry, Worried, Proud. These dots with feelings might be able to help us understand more about the feelings that go up and down inside of us.
• Can you think of a time when one of your feelings suddenly got big for you? What was that like? What happened next?
• Big feelings grow from smaller feelings. What are some ways we can notice when our feelings are going up and down in size?
• We could use the small to big scale for any feeling to tell a story about when a feeling inside of us got bigger or smaller.
• Are there words or numbers we could put along the scale of a feeling as it gets bigger? Eg. 1,2,3,4,5,6? A little bit, a bit, some, a fair bit, very much? Or are there special words that go with particular growing feelings, like for Angry, it might start with irritated, annoyed, frustrated, cross, and finish with furious? Or there might be other words or numbers that feel more right to you?"
PDF Link:https://professionals.childhood.org.au/app/uploads/2022/06/ACF722-Small-to-Big-Feelings-v2.pdf
