Transcript of Video describing the emotions wheel
In this video, Alice Rocca - a headteacher, life coach, and education consultant - discusses the importance of understanding children’s emotions and feelings in relation to their behaviour. She explains that while adults often struggle to articulate emotions accurately, children find it even harder because they lack the necessary vocabulary.
This can lead to misunderstandings about what they are truly feeling. To support children better, Alice introduces a practical tool called the emotions wheel (or feelings wheel), which helps children identify and label a wide range of emotions, from basic ones like sadness or anger to more complex feelings.
She demonstrates how the tool can be used one-to-one, in small groups, or whole-class settings, such as circle time or PSHE lessons, to build emotional literacy and improve mental health. Alice encourages educators to download and use the emotions wheel to help children articulate, explore, and manage their feelings more effectively.
Hello i'm Alice Rocca
I'm a head teacher, life coach and education consultant and today i'm here to talk to you about emotions and feelings.
now have you ever realized the link between emotions and feelings and the behaviors that you're seeing in the children that you're working with?
of course you have.
the thing is we often might not really understand which emotion, which feeling
is leading to the behavior or leading to the worries or concerns that a child might have
now think about it:
as an adult we can find it really hard to articulate our feelings
sometimes we might say we're angry when actually we're feeling frustrated, for example.
Children find it even harder and this is because they often don't have the vocabulary
they often don't know which word to use
and they oversimplify how they're feeling or use the wrong word completely.
For us as practitioners working with children it's key to really understand what they're feeling
how their emotions are affecting them in order to support them or to help them with any worries that they might have.
Now i found a really great tool to use
i'm going to show it to you now it's easy to download from google
it's called the emotions wheel or the feelings wheel and
as you can see
it's got lots and lots of different vocabulary on there for children to start to identify and use
i use this feelings wheel either with children one-to-one or in small groups
or in whole class with whole classes
it starts off in the middle with the primary feelings a child might have and a child might use
so for example they might say that they're feeling bad
or sad
or fearful
or angry
or surprised
and then as it goes out towards the edge of the wheel there are more complex feelings which you can identify
and you can discuss and talk through with the children that you're working with.
now, as i say.
you can use it in lots of different ways:
one-to-one while you're having conversations
or building a child's emotional intelligence
or in small groups -
say if a group of friends have fallen out and you're trying to do some restorative work to help them move through that problem
equally in a whole class you can use it in circle time
i've used it by putting a large feelings or emotions wheel up on the board
or a copy of one in the middle of the circle
you can use it as a discussion point then
or you can give opportunities for children to share their experiences of feeling certain emotions
or a chance to give them time to ask questions
or to just sit and think about different emotions they might be feeling that day
it's a great tool to use
when covering your PSHE curriculum
so for example
thinking about things like belonging
or relationships
or dealing with loss
or dealing with transition.
it's also a good tool to use in your mental health and emotional well-being classes
so get onto google
print it off
start using it with the children in your care you'll find it really helpful and they'll find it really supportive
thanks for watching
