5 Activities That Promote Healthy Emotional Development

Kids come into this world with an innate need to connect with everything around them. The best thing we can do for our little ones is expose them to the diversity of the world, so that a foundation of security is built allowing for healthy social and emotional development. The more opportunity that children have to interact with the different facets of the world, the more capable they will be when it comes to expressing themselves and managing their emotions. 

Obviously, just like most things in life, we want to begin with baby steps (pardon the pun). To being a path of healthy emotional development for infants, start by simply talking, reading, and singing with them every day. Infants learn by experiencing the world through you, and these little activities instill a sense of feeling included and loved during their early development. 

While this will set the baseline for your child to develop emotionally, once they become toddlers, you’ll find yourself having to engage in more targeted activities. 

1. Play Cooperative Games

The most basic way children learn how to interact with the world is through play. One of the main things you want your child to learn is when it is appropriate to be competitive and cooperative. While there is a time and a place for both styles of play, cooperative games can easily be overlooked in favor of our little ones being the shining star on the field or in a tournament.

Some of the benefits of cooperative play is that it can ease children into coping with failures and challenges, as the results are shared. Playing cooperatively also helps when it comes to team building skills which are important to the healthy emotional development of children. By building team building skills children will learn to work together and once they find their place in the group, they will develop positive feelings of self-worth. This will lead to your child becoming more comfortable expressing ideas. 

You will want to find games that require taking turns, sharing and cooperating. You can think of activities such as Double Dutch or simple Catch. If you want to further develop your child’s understanding of their emotions, you play games designed to enhance their emotional development.

2. Play Competitive Games

As we’re all well aware, children have an abundance of energy, and are ready to run, jump, climb, and yell at the drop of a hat. Directing that energy into competitive activities such as sports is an excellent way to children engaged and healthy. This will also help in building the habit of leading a less sedentary life in the future. In terms of emotions, games and sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball and football can also help children learn important life lessons about being part of a team and fair play. 

Being part of a competitive game teaches kids how to compete in everyday life. As children grow up, they’ll continually find themselves in competition either at school, in the workplace, or any other multitudes of life. These encounters don’t have to be negative or unhealthy though. By playing competitive games early in life, kids will learn how competition works in a more supportive environment, and that the more effort you put in, the better your chances are for success. 

Sports in general have shown to be a deterrent to risky or negative behavior, as they are an outlet for children to express themselves, develop friendships, and manage their emotions. 

3. Role-Play Scenarios

One activity that you can do with your kid to get to the heart of an issue is to try role-playing. It’s a pretty simple game. All you have to do is either get together some fun dress-up clothes, or puppets just to kickstart your child’s imagination. The act itself is great for your child as the verbal and non-verbal communication in the game will help to enhance their social and emotional skill sets. Keep in mind, that this activity can be as fun and loose as you want it, by only telling a shared whimsical story, or you can target it to deal with specific issues that your child is currently dealing with in their life. 

4. Make Art

One of the easiest activities boost healthy emotional development you can do with your little one is to just make some art. Directing your child’s imagination into a piece of art can provide an outlet for emotional expression. Don’t limit art to a piece of paper and some colored pencils. LEt your child explore with different materials, tools, and textures. Remind them that the purpose is not the end result but the process of making art. This way they can express themselves without restricting them to what they think they are technically capable of, such as, “I won’t make a tree because it won’t look like a tree”. The freedom to create art how they choose allows them to explore the different thoughts and emotions they have swirling in their heads.

5. Read Books Together 

One of the easiest ways to help a child develop a better understanding of their emotions is simply to read books together. The beginning of emotional development starts by learning what feelings and emotions are, learning why they are happening in us, and seeing these emotions in others.  

By reading books, children get a chance to experience a variety of problems and obstacles that will elicit emotions for the characters in the books and themselves. It will also showcase the different ways that a situation can evoke an emotion. A book can show a group of characters handling the same event in a variety of ways and your child can see their own emotions reflected in this. Books can help your child with understanding a variety of life circumstances and experiences. Your own little one will even mirror their emotions according to what a character is experiencing and this can result in a boost in their own emotional development.

About The Author

Amy Petrou is a content advocate at GenMindful.com, and a mother of two. In her free time you will find her writing on her blog, reading and searching for pottery and paintings to add to her growing collection.