(ages 9-11)
An Ocean of Emotions
Emotions as Teachers and Helpers in the Ocean of Life
An 8-week Emotion and Social Group for Kids
Emotions are a part of being human! Children need to perceive emotions as teachers and helpers so that they don’t push them away and end up avoiding them, disconnecting from uncomfortable feelings, hurting themselves or hurting others. Children can learn that emotions need to be recognized, that emotions need to be heard by listening to our inside self, noticing and sensing the emotions which can lead to calming and soothing themselves and towards problem-solving strategies that can lead to connection and communication with another that leads to resiliency and overcoming challenges.
This group will be divided for children ages 8 – 10 years old and preteens 11-13 years old. Children are learning about their feelings through family life, engaging with others in school, at the playground with friends and peers, and unfortunately, through traumatic life experiences of loss, physical illness, abuse, bullying, shootings in and around the community, and global events such as the pandemic of COVID-19 among many more events.
Emotions such as anger, sadness, or fear are generally not welcomed but pushed away (that reminds me of the movie Inside Out where sadness was overlooked and anger and fear weren’t being understood as to why they had taken over). But every emotion are teachers and helpers to understanding ourselves better, what we value and what we don’t value, what we stand for and communicate it, what hurts, but also what brings joy.
However, as adults will do, children can also get stuck when they do not give space for these feelings and work through them in ways that respect them and guide them, in ways that can support, problem solve, connect and communicate what we feel and need.
An Ocean of Emotions is an 8-week social and emotional group to learn and explore their emotions and build resources to listen and connect with their emotions, with each other using art and games! All within the theme of the ocean and each emotion is an ocean animal trying to communicate something for us to know about our inside self.
This is what we will focus on:
- The eight basic emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy.
- Connect each emotion to an ocean animal (starfish, crab, sea turtle, whale, dolphin, shark, fish, seal, and octopus) to help visualize and describe the emotion.
- Talk about and express through art how feelings show up for us in our ocean of life: school, at home with family, and friendships.
We will learn how to keep the ocean calm and ride the waves by focusing on how to befriend and walk with our emotions as a way of listening and talking to our inside self. But also, what to do when the waves turn into a storm by having resources to manage the hurricanes or storms in their life.
We work with our emotions by using the 3 C’s for emotions:
Whales: Contact with our bodies by learning to listen
Dolphin: Compassion with our self-talk
Octopus: Creativity for expressing feelings
- We will learn about what we can control and what we can’t control.
- We will learn copings skills and resources for stress, anger, and sadness that focus on the body, by creating a canvas that will include copings skills (2 calming, 2 distraction, 2 physical, and 2 processing skills).
- Each week we will work with an emotion and use the 3 C’s as we move through identifying situations and experiences for each emotion and resources that will support them. We will work on a canvas art to explore the feelings, problem solve, and build skills to help self soothe, release, or process the feelings.
- Movement games will help practice learning about our feelings, how they show up in our bodies, how we use our tone, speech, and facial expressions to express feelings in a fun and playful way with one another.
Each group session is 2 hours and 8 sessions for $550 due in two payments of $275.
A one time fee of $30.00 for canvas, paint, craft material, and snacks.
Time: 4pm – 6pm twice a month
You are responsible for payment of ALL sessions and no refunds are given for missed sessions. No exceptions.
1st payment due December 29, 2023.
2nd payment due January 29, 2024.
2024 Dates
January 24
February 7
February 21
March 6
March 20
April 10
April 24