The Feelings Wheel and How to Use it to Support your Child

The Feelings Wheel is a visual tool that helps children (and adults!) develop the awareness and vocabulary that supports the management and regulation of emotions. It was created by Robert Plutchik to organise 8 basic emotions into a coloured visual tool to understand emotions and related physiological experiences. Gloria Wilcox was inspired by Plutchik's model and designed a simpler version that many of us are familiar with today. This model is usually recommended to support children.
 
Have you ever asked a child, “How are you feeling?” only to be answered with the word fine. Or perhaps they reply with an emotion “umbrella” word, also known as core emotion words such as sad or angry. Our emotional experiences are often more complex than these simple words can convey. The Feelings Wheel provides a range of expressive words that can help children develop a more accurate description of how they are feeling.
 
To make use of The Feelings Wheel begin in the centre and find the emotion that seems to most closely match how the child is feeling. You can then progress to the outer circles within the same colour triangle to support the child with identifying their feelings with more accuracy.
 
Benefits of using a Feelings Wheel:

• Develops EQ.
• Improves communication.
• Improves relationships with caregivers, significant adults and peers.
• Develops empathy.
• Develops emotional regulation.

 
Some ideas for using a Feelings Wheel

• General discussion around emotions. You could talk about any other words you think might come in each group.
• Use to support use of emotional vocabulary in relation to a specific event. What is your emotion? Can you tell me more about this emotion using the outer circles to help you?
• Create your own feelings wheel activity (e.g. use a blank wheel or coloured only wheel and decide which emotions belong in each section; make a simple wheel, allocate one word to each section then encourage creative font, doodles and use of colour).

The Feeling Wheel is a simple, yet powerful tool to support the development of Emotional Intelligence. 

Download your free printable Feelings Wheel below!

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