How can I cope with having strong feelings?

Aim: to identify strength of feeling connected to particular people and events and how we deal with these feelings.
Time allocation: 40 minutes.

Discuss different types of emotions with the class and try to get the pupils to recall times when they may have experienced some of these. How strong was the feeling, how long did it last and how did they cope?

Ask the children to draw a ‘circle of strong feelings’ based on their own experiences (or those of others). Write the various emotions around the circle (hate, love, anger, frustration, jealousy etc) and write/draw people and events connected to those emotions. Some examples would be:

Cross-curricular links:
Using their own circle of feelings, pupils can develop role-play, writing, poems and stories based on their experiences. What were the events that led to the strong feelings and how did they deal with them? Were any adults able to help them? Did they listen and understand or did they ignore them? Were any friends able to help?

You could also consider how pupils might respond to other people’s strong feelings. How would they/ do they deal with adult’s strong feelings?