MAD, SAD or GLAD

Dearest Clarity,

I was speaking to a parent today at my daughter's school and she was telling me how she is having a really hard time with her son. He is really acting out and she knows it is because he is upset, but she can't get him to communicate what he is feeling. It reminded me of when I was taking a life skills class in college, and we had an entire class based on feeling words and being able to identify our feelings. I couldn't believe how many people weren't able to do it, and these were adults. When I went home that day I sat with my daughter and together we made a list of feeling words, and drew pictures beside them. Once we finished the chart, we went through all the words we came up with and acted them out. We made funny faces and crazy noises, expressing all the different feelings which was a lot of fun. When my daughter would get upset and couldn't communicate it to me, I would bring out the chart and ask her to point to the picture that represented what she was feeling. It really helped her understand what feelings were and all the different types of feelings we all have. I think we often expect our kids to just know how to communicate. How are they supposed to know how to tell us if they're mad, sad or glad if they've never been taught how.