Granting Children Their Emotions

What's In This Kit?
This training kit is designed to introduce teachers to the important idea of granting children their expressed emotions, explore strategies for increasing trust, and consider the effects and ethical issues of not taking children's emotions seriously. It contains:

• Expected training outcomes
• Preparation instructions
• Training strategies and tips
• Implementation steps
• Follow-up activities for administrators/directors
• A learning assessment
• A training evaluation/further needs assessment
• A resource list
• The article “Granting Children Their Emotions” by Ilse Elisabeth Plattner
• A training certificate to award to teachers for attendance and participation
• A certificate for the trainer and other presenters

Who's the Target Audience?
The target audience for this kit is all teachers working with children from birth to 8. Beginning teachers will learn how to grant children their emotions as intermediate and advanced teachers will explore strategies for increasing trust and consider the effects and ethical issues of not taking children’s emotions seriously.

Teacher Skill Level

beginning intermediate advanced

Children's Age Level

infants toddlers preschoolers school-agers birth to 8

Kit Timeline:
Preparation time for this kit is 1.0-3.0 hours, depending on the amount of observation time needed. Implementation time is estimated at 1.5 hours

Training Outcomes:

1. 1. Teachers will understand the consequences for healthy child development of not granting children their emotions.
2. 2. Teachers will empathize with children by listening to children, and by recognizing and accepting expressed emotions.
3. 3. Teachers will serve as a resource to families on responding with empathy to their children’s emotions and why such a response is important.
4. 4. Teachers will serve as role models for families by demonstrating ways to empathize with children and to recognize and accept expressed emotions.

These training outcomes address the following:

• A1-4, 8 of the Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1998)
• Standard 1 of NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation, Initial Licensure Level (NAEYC, 2003).
• 1304.21 and 1304.24 of Head Start Performance Standards (Federal Register, Nov. 5, 1996, Volume 61, Number 215).

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