How Can I Use Feeling Visual Charts at Home to Strengthen My Toddler & Preschoolers Emotional Vocabulary?

I love feeling visuals for young children because they create a bridge for expressing and learning about emotions, especially during a stage when feelings are big and the ability to regulate them is still very much under construction.

Feeling visuals aren’t a perfect, one-size-fits-all tool. However, they can be simply one powerful way to help your child build a strong foundation for emotional awareness and language. In general, it is great to have a variety of tools and avenues to open up the door to learning about feelings at home. Some other examples of tangible tools you could use at home are: feeling stuffed animals or puppets, books about emotions, etc.

The #1 Trap Parents Fall Into:

One of the most common mistakes I see parents make is introducing a feelings visual only when their child is already upset.

While the intention is good, introducing something new in the middle of a big emotion often backfires. When children are dysregulated, their brains aren’t in a state to learn, process, or try new tools. They might respond with indifference, frustration, or even bigger feelings.

So When Should I Use It?

Children learn best when they’re calm, playful, and engaged. That’s when their brains are most open to learning new things—like using a feelings chart.

If you save the visual for calmer moments, it becomes a familiar and safe tool your child can later access when emotions rise.

How to Introduce and Use a Feelings Visual at Home:

Here are some simple, practical ways to introduce and use a feelings visual effectively:

• Choose where to hang it up in the house together.

• Make it playful and lighthearted when using it. Avoid turning it into a “lesson” about recent behavior.

• Lead with curiosity. Instead of quizzing your child (“What’s that feeling?” or “When do you feel sad?”), explore it together like you would a picture book.

• Follow your child’s lead. Let them guide the pace and interest level.

• Model how to use it by going to the feeling chart to identify and share your own feelings.

• Make it a family effort, everyone is learning about it together instead of singling out 1 child.

Fun Ways to Use Your Feeling Visual at Home:

• Match emotions from the chart to characters in your child’s favorite books you read.

• Use storytelling or pretend play to show how the chart can help express feelings when words are hard to find.

• Play "Guess That Feeling" with dolls of stuffed animals acting out the feelings.

• Act out feeling faces together in front of a mirror.

Tip: Always keep it short and sweet and following your's child lead. Most importantly, make it fun!

How to Choose a Feeling Visual for Your Family:

• For little ones 5 and under, choose a feeling visual with the basic emotions but avoid ones with too many emotion pictures that can become visually overwhelming and hard to use. I encourage between 6-10 emotions.

• For toddlers, I encourage using a feeling visual with real faces or more realistic pictures of emotions and keeping it to basic emotions of 6-8 or less.

• As they get older (and their emotional vocabulary grow), then their emotion chart can grow too!

• If they are already loving a certain book with emotions, using a feeling visual that matches that book can be a great way to carry over their interest. (i.e, The Color Monster, Spots of Emotions, etc.)

Final Thoughts

Remember: this is just one tool and it doesn't have to be used all the time. The goal isn’t to force conversations about feelings, but to make emotional language a natural part of everyday life.

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Download a Printable Feeling Visual Here:

First Feeling Visual Printable