Talking about emotions

Dream

Talking about emotions with children and young people became a lot easier in May 2015 with the release of the Disney movie Inside Out. Based on 11-year-old Riley’s journey of moving house with her parents, we are taken inside her mind and learn about her emotions through the use of five main characters: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust.

I wonder whether you are involved in helping students transition from primary to secondary school? Perhaps you have used It’s Your Move (a Scripture Union resource), or been involved in transition mentoring. It is a key time for young people which results in a mix of emotions, all depicted brilliantly in Inside Out. If you haven’t thought before about working with year six children (10-11 year olds) in primary schools, perhaps that is something to look into helping out with in the summer term of this new academic year. Your school should have staff responsible for visiting year sixes in the summer term, so perhaps talk to them about getting involved. It can help students with their transition and also to identify you as a safe person to connect with once they start at their new school.

Develop

Talking about emotions with young people often requires us to reflect on our own. Some of us find this easier than others, but an important part of our development as schools’ workers is to consider our own personal development, character and faith. Here are five questions for you to consider at the start of this new academic year. I would encourage you to reflect on these first on your own, and then talk them over with someone – perhaps a mentor, a team-mate or a trusted friend:

• How are you feeling about this new school year? (You might find it helpful to refer to the Inside Out characters and consider the range of emotions illustrated there.)
• Think of the people who inspire you and give you energy. How much time are you planning to spend with them over the next term? Try to do this more.
• Think about the places or activities that inspire you creatively. Can you intentionally build some of these into the next term? For example, some people talk about finding creativity in nature or an art gallery, where they can take inspiration or get a new perspective from different sources.
• What things have you heard God say about your work that have given you confidence and developed your faith? Write these down. It could be something a long time ago, or more recently. If nothing comes to mind, pray about this and ask God for some insight into your role and ministry in schools. Sometimes new ideas and thoughts come through talking this out with others – God often uses other people to speak to us.
• What are you aiming for or hoping for this term? We can be a lot more productive and fruitful if we know what we are working towards. If you don’t already have one, write your strategy for the term ahead. This can be as simple or complex as you like but is typically formed of aims, objectives, outcomes and outputs. A guide for how to write a strategy can be found on the SchoolsworkUK website. As part of this, you might find it helpful to consider your own values and those of the charity / church you are working with.

Do

Here is an activity you can use with a group of students, in a lunch club, for example. It is a variation of Twister but without a Twister mat. To create the different coloured ‘zones’ you will need five different coloured circles, which will represent each of the five Inside Out emotions: e.g. yellow for joy and green for disgust. These can be created with large sheets of coloured card, or if you just have plain A3 paper you can simply write the colour on the middle of the sheet and cut them into circle shapes. Set these up around the space that you have available.

You will be sharing with the students a series of scenarios and, in response to each one, they have to choose a colour / emotion represents how they feel about that particular situation and move to stand on or around the corresponding circle. Here are some suggested scenarios, but add as many as you like:

• The bell goes at the end of the school day.
• You break up with your girlfriend / boyfriend.
• You are about to do a sky dive.
• You see someone kicking your neighbour’s dog.
• You wake up early for school then realise it’s Saturday.
• It’s your turn to do the washing up at home.

Explain that it is good to be aware of how we react to situations and also to understand that the same situation can evoke either similar or different responses in other people. We need to allow each other to feel differently about life – we don’t always see things the same way.

Say: At the start of the new school year, each of you will be experiencing a range of emotions, whether it is fear, sadness, joy or something completely different. As Christians, we believe in a God who understands and has experienced all of the emotions that we feel through the life of Jesus. He is someone who understands fear as well as sadness and everything that we go through. In fact, he is the only one who actually knows exactly what life is like for us and because of that we can trust him completely.

Amy Tolmie is director of SchoolsworkUK, a Youthscape project.