Body Clues Activity: Emotional Expression and Identification for Anxious Kids
As anxiety counselors in St. Louis, we understand the relationship between internal emotions and external expression.
We all experience emotions internally and express them in slightly different ways from one another. We all have our inside emotional experiences and our outside displays of frustration, anger, and sadness.
When we experience a spike in emotions, it helps us know we may need to take the time to Stop and Think, using our Wizard Brain. Otherwise, our Lizard Brain might take over, leading to an explosive reaction.
Our Lizard Brain wants to react right away (it is in charge of fight, flight, and freeze, of course) – so if you notice yourself feeling heated, your Lizard Brain may tell you that you should explode and yell. However, if you take the time to stop and think “will I get in trouble if I explode?” you can make a wise decision, even when you start feeling upset.
Body Clues Art Activity:
We all benefit from learning more about how we feel in our body. The best way to do this activity is to simultaneously do it with your child, so that you normalize the feelings, and you have an opportunity to explore how feelings are individualized.
1.Start by drawing an outline of a body
It doesn’t have to be perfect! Try to get a head and arms and legs in there, and call it good.
2. Next, have your child pick out what feeling they want to talk about first
Remember, “good” or “bad” aren’t feelings - there’s no such thing as a good feeling or a bad feeling! Some feelings might be comfortable and some might be uncomfortable, but every emotion is helpful to recognize.
Note: For some kids, we might pick out the first feeling for them. For this exercise, let’s use MAD.
3. Talk about the last time they felt that way
When you let your kid pick out a feeling, you want them to think about the last time they felt that way, and really bring that feeling in to their body to help with the emotional awareness building.
Using our mad example, ask, “When’s the last time you felt mad? What happened?”
4. Empathize with the emotion
All feelings are valid, so we always encourage parents, teachers, and therapists to tell kids that those feelings make sense. Rephrase what they said above, and agree with it, “Oh, your friend Amir took your favorite pencil and din’t give it back. That would make me mad, too!”
5. Choose that feeling’s color
After your child picks out their feeling - happy, sad, tired, angry, mad, yucky, uncomfortable, ashamed, etc. - let them pick out the best color for that feeling. Whatever color they want! After they pick their color, you can pick yours, and it can be the same or different.
“Okay, so let’s decide, what’s a good color for mad? You can pick out any color that seems best!”
6. Identify and color it in
Then, ask them to color where they feel that feeling, on the body outline drawing. When they felt happy, do they notice it in their belly? Their heart? Their head?
“Okay, Amir took your favorite pencil, you were feeling mad, and mad for you is this really bright red color. When you were feeling mad, where did you notice that feeling in your body?”
If your kiddo is having trouble thinking about where, or they just color their brain because they thought about being mad but haven’t connected to the other physical symptoms, take the lead and identify your own anger clues.
“You know, when I feel mad, my heart starts to beat really fast, and my breathing gets fast, too. So, I’m going to color in my heart and my lungs. Ooh, sometimes I also want to hit something, even though I don’t, so I think I feel anger in my hands and I’m going to color those really red, too.”
7. Repeat for other feelings
Again, offer your child the opportunity to select other feelings, or make suggestions. We encourage exploring mad, anxious, nervous, sad, and ending with a fun one like happy, excited, or surprised.
Processing Questions for Body Clues Activity:
After completing your drawings, you can talk about TONS of different things, but here are a few favorite questions:
Start really general: “What do you notice about your drawing?”
“Do any feelings seem to happen in the same place?”
“How can you tell the difference between different feelings?”
Anxiety and anger tend to have a big overlap, so pay special attention to these two feelings! Read more here: Is Your Angry Child Actually Anxious?
By asking many, many questions, kids develop a more rich understanding of the complexity of their emotions.
Finally, get their take on something:
Ask them why your two pictures are different. They’re not exactly the same. What does that mean?
Everyone feels angry, mad, happy, sad, etc… but not everyone experiences those emotions in the same way.
We’re all a little bit different, which is awesome! This also means that something that makes you feel angry doesn’t necessarily make everyone else angry.
So when you start to notice your body clues, be aware that other people might be experiencing those same feelings in different ways.
As a parent, you can start to notice these body clues in your kid as well. When they start to notice they’re a little mad in their body or their brain, help them to calm down. It’s going to be SO HELPFUL. You’ve got this!
What else can you do?
Stop and Think: Impulse Control and Anxiety Management For Kids
Talk with your child about how their body feels before, during, and after they do something they know they shouldn’t, to help build up their impulse control skills.
CBT for Kids: How to Address Unhelpful Thoughts
Have you heard about the cognitive triangle? Learn more about how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors all impact one another!
Emotions Elevators: BrainWise Lesson for Anxious, Angry Kids
Best next step: Talk about different LEVELS of your emotions (big, medium, and small).
Read “When Anxiety Makes You Angry: CBT Anger Management Skills for Teens With Anxiety-Driven Anger”
Kelsey’s book, being published in 2022, includes this walkthrough. Sign up for our newsletter so you know when you can pre-order!
Also a great idea? Talking with a child therapist. Our anxiety therapist love working with kids, teens, and families. If you’re located in Missouri, we’d love to help:
Curious to hear more about child anxiety or grief counseling in St. Louis? Our therapists specialize in anxiety and anger management for pre-schoolers, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, teens, and college students. In addition to CBT, our amazing team of therapists also incorporate trauma-informed care, EMDR, art therapy, and play therapy. Families come from Clayton, University City, Ladue, Creve Couer, Town and Country, Brentwood, and surrounding St. Louis areas. Email us to learn more at hello@compassionatecounselingstl.com or 314-339-7640.