The first three steps of the RULER method–recognize, understand, and label emotions–seem fairly straightforward and academic compared to the next two–express and regulate. Here is where the emotion comes out, and there’s a lot of potential for both healing and harm.
So if there’s danger in expressing emotions, why should we (teachers) even go there?
Because one way or another, kids are going to express their emotions. The questions isn’t if our students will express their emotions, the question is: will they express themselves in ways that are helpful or unhelpful? So in this post we’ll talk about helping students express their emotions in ways that are appropriate, healthy, and helpful.
What is Healthy Emotional Expression?
Healthy expression is emotion that is expressed in ways that are most likely to facilitate problem-solving, healing and connection. We’ve all had experiences where we’ve expressed ourselves in ways that make our situation worse. In his book, Permission to Feel, Marc Brackett sums up expression like this:
“[When] we express our emotions, we’re saying: Here’s what I feel and why. Here’s what I want to happen next. Here’s what I need from you right now.”
Marc Brackett, Permission to Feel
How Can I Help Students Express their Emotions?
Again, treat expression as an academic skill at first–teach it to students outside the heat of the moment. When I was developing a unit on expressing emotions, I divided types of expression into three categories: talk about it, write about it, and move your body.
Again, I think the biggest barrier to practicing this in most classrooms is time–helping kids work through their feelings takes time and you don’t have enough time. On the other hand, you probably spend a ton of time on discipline problems, all of which have an emotional element. So teaching this skill and giving students space to practice it in real-time may actually save you time.
What do you think–are you intimidated by asking students to express their emotions? How do you help them express themselves in a healthy way?
If you’re looking for tools to scaffold student’s emotional expression, preview this unit in my RULER series.
