Helping Children Understand Their Emotions: How and Why to Create Emotion Characters

For young children, big feelings can be confusing and overwhelming. They often struggle to put words to what they feel—whether it's anger, sadness, fear, or excitement. That’s where emotion characters come in.

Creating characters that represent different emotions can be a powerful way to help children recognise, name, and manage their feelings. Think of it as giving emotions a face and a story—something your child can understand, talk to, and even befriend.

In this blog, we’ll explore why emotion characters are so effective, and how you can start using them at home.

Why Use Emotion Characters?

1. Emotions Become Less Scary

When emotions are given a name, shape, or personality, they feel less overwhelming. Instead of being "mad and out of control," a child might say, “Grumpy George is stomping around again.” This creates distance and helps kids respond more calmly.

2. They Make the Invisible Visible

Young children are concrete thinkers. They understand what they can see or touch. Giving emotions a physical form—like a cartoon, puppet, or stuffed toy—helps them see what they’re feeling.

3. They Build Emotional Vocabulary

Children often feel things before they can express them. Using characters with distinct traits teaches children to label emotions: frustration, nervousness, embarrassment—not just “mad” or “sad.”

4. They Open the Door to Conversations

It’s much easier for a child to talk about how “Worried Willow is visiting” than to say “I feel anxious.” Characters act as a safe bridge between a child’s inner world and your supportive presence.

How to Create Emotion Characters With Your Child

You don’t need to be an artist or therapist to create emotion characters. This can be a fun, creative bonding activity. Here’s how to get started:

1. Pick a Few Core Emotions

Start with 4–6 basic emotions that your child experiences often. These could be:

• Happy

• Sad

• Angry

• Scared

• Excited

• Calm

You can always add more later, like jealousy, pride, or worry.

2. Give Each Emotion a Name and Personality

Get creative! Let your child help invent:

• A name (e.g., Angry Alex, Sad Sally, Calm Casey)

• What they look like (color, size, facial expression)

• Where they “live” (in the heart, in a cloud, in their backpack!)

• What they like or dislike

• What they need to feel better

• How they see the world

Example:
Worried Willow might be small, blue, and always hiding behind her hands. She likes quiet spaces and soft music. She see's the world as scary and thinks that I can't do things. She gets bigger when there’s a test coming up, but she shrinks when we take deep breaths.

3. Draw or Craft the Characters

Draw them together, make puppets, or use toys to represent each one. You can even make an “Emotion Deck” or a “Feeling Family” of plush toys.

Don’t worry about perfection—kids respond to simple and playful.

4. Use the Characters in Daily Life

The real magic happens when you bring these characters into everyday situations.

Try phrases like:

• “Is Angry Alex visiting right now?”

• “What do you think Sad Sally needs today?”

• “Should we help Calm Casey grow a little bigger?”

Encourage your child to check in with their characters, or even journal or draw about who’s visiting today.

5. Teach Coping Strategies Through the Characters

Each emotion character can have its own “toolkit.” For example:

• Angry Alex cools down with deep breaths or squeezing a pillow.

• Scared Sam likes to hold someone’s hand or look at a nightlight.

• Calm Casey reminds us to take a break and slow down.

This helps your child learn what to do with the emotion, rather than just feeling stuck in it.

What the Science Says

Using stories and personification to teach emotions is backed by child development research. Emotion characters tap into:

• Social-emotional learning (SEL) skills

• Narrative thinking (how kids make sense of their world)

• Self-regulation by externalising internal states

Tools like Pixar’s Inside Out or the Zones of Regulation curriculum use this exact method—and for good reason. It works.

Final Thoughts

Helping your child understand emotions isn’t about avoiding big feelings—it’s about teaching them that all feelings are okay and manageable. Emotion characters give kids the tools and language to navigate their inner world with creativity and confidence.

With just a few drawings, names, and stories, you can help your child turn emotional chaos into something they can see, understand, and grow from.