Name That Feeling!

If your child is anything like mine, the answer to “How are you doing?” usually falls somewhere between “good” and “I don’t know”—with maybe an “I’m hungry” thrown in there.

I mean, my husband’s responses aren’t much more nuanced either. :)

It wasn’t until I delved into the research on emotions that I realized why these answers—while I’m sure true on some level—aren’t particularly helpful if we want to get better at managing our own feelings or helping our kids manage theirs.

Which brings me to the emotional fitness muscle I want to talk about today: identifying our feelings.

Why does naming a feeling matter?

Dr. Mark Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, has spent decades studying emotions and emotional intelligence. One of the ideas at the heart of his work is pretty simple: the more accurately we can identify what we’re feeling, the better equipped we are to do something useful with that information.

Think about the difference between:

“I’m stressed.”

and

“I’m overwhelmed.”

Those aren't just different words. They give us different information.

If I’m overwhelmed, I may need to reduce the load. If I’m lonely, I may need connection. If I’m anxious, I may need help tolerating uncertainty or preparing for what’s ahead.

The more precise the word, the more useful the information.

My absolute favorite tool for this

One of my favorite tools for building this muscle is the How We Feel app, which Dr. Brackett helped create. It’s free, and both you and your child can use it.

I’ve used it with my son, and I’ve gotten information from him that I might never have gotten by just asking, “How are you?”

I think part of why it works so well for him is that it’s on a screen (a win for screen time?!) uses colors, and lets him look through the words and choose the one that best describes how he’s feeling.

Expressing himself verbally has always been harder for him. Choosing the right word from a screen is something he can do.

And some of what I learned was pretty eye-opening.

When I looked back at his responses, I noticed that on school mornings he was choosing words like tense, pressured, and anxious.

Could I have guessed he was anxious about school? Probably.

But in the moment, all I was seeing was a kid who seemed rude and mad in the mornings.

Seeing tense, pressured, and anxious changed the story I was telling myself about his behavior.

And when the story changed, my response to him changed too.

Instead of seeing a kid who was giving me a hard time, I could see a kid who was having a hard time—which gave me more empathy for what was happening underneath the behavior.

Emotions as information

This is a way of relating to emotions that I’ve found really useful.

Instead of immediately judging an emotion as good or bad, I try to take a beat and figure out where it’s coming from.

One way Dr. Brackett describes emotions is as internal signals that give us clues about what’s happening beneath the surface—what we care about, what we need, or what feels threatening, uncertain, unfair, or important.

Think of emotions like the lights on your car’s dashboard. Knowing a light came on is helpful, but knowing which light gives you a much better idea of what’s actually going on and what might help.

The same is true with emotions. “I feel bad” tells us something. Getting more specific—“I feel anxious”—tells us more. And then we can get curious: What am I anxious about? What might be underneath it?

So now we might have: “I feel anxious because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

That’s a lot more useful information to work with.

What about us parents?

We can’t teach our kids an emotional language we don’t speak ourselves.

How often do we adults say:

“I’m fine.”
“I’m stressed.”
“I’m annoyed.”

But maybe “I’m annoyed” is only the surface.

Maybe I’m overstimulated. Or worried. Or rushed. Or feeling powerless.

That distinction can change how we respond.

Which is of course why the How We Feel app is great for us parents too. It helps me get more nuanced about what I’m feeling, notice patterns over time, and offers up ideas for what I might do with that information.

Anyway, I love it—for me and for my child.

Of course, if you’d rather skip the screen, here is a printable feelings handouts for kids. They can look through the options and choose the feeling that best describes what’s going on for them.

Identifying our feelings is a skill that gets better with practice. So if “good,” “fine,” or “I don’t know” are doing a lot of heavy lifting in your house, give one of these tools a try and see what shifts.

Want More Support?

If you’d like help navigating the challenges of parenting a neurodivergent child—or simply want support for your own emotional wellbeing:

—Jenn