Developmental Blog 4: Teaching Feelings.

           After last week’s discussion about whether or not you can teach emotion, I caught myself teaching emotion at my practicum site on Monday.  I was totally against the idea that feelings could be taught. As some people were voicing, everyone’s idea of a feeling is different therefore they can’t be taught.

            Monday morning while working at my practicum, I contradicted myself. I was trying to teach a child that he was feeling mad.  During playtime, a child was asked to place their feet on the ground. After a few requests, the child was physically prompted to place his feet on the ground.  At this point the child started to kick, slap, and throw things at his surrounding classmates and me. I took the child away from his classmates and tried to block the aggressive behavior. As the tantrum was unfolding I was instructed to tell him that his tantrum behavior was not an option and that he can say “I feel mad” along with signing “mad” to him. Totally contradicting myself, I was instructed to teach a child the feeling of mad.  Behaviorally, I can say I was trying to reinforce him saying or signing, “I feel mad” instead of using aggressive behavior. Either way I found it funny that I had contradicted myself.

            Once I looked closer at my everyday interactions at my practicum site the other teachers and myself are teaching children feelings all the time. We differentially reinforce one child for saying, “I feel happy” instead of screaming when he gets excited and teaching “I feel mad” instead of throwing a tantrum. Teaching feelings surrounds me everyday, but I still find it odd to teach feelings.