EMOTIONAL STABILITY
OBJECTIVE
Using Educational Technology to Develop Emotional Stability
The purpose of these activities is to provide guidelines for the parents to scaffold children's recognising, monitoring and control of their emotions with educational apps. Emotional Stability is often referred to a person’s ability to remain stable and balanced, which appears as one’s calmness, freedom from anxiety and depression. More generally, an emotionally stable person reports more happiness and satisfaction with their lives (https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Emotional_stability).
The activities are divided into 4 sessions according to Cope and Kalantzis' (2015) Learning by Design framework.
MATERIALS
Resources
Tablet/IPad
Internet
Video Recorder or Smartphone
Kidoko My Emotions, Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame, Calm Kids, Stop, Breathe and Think, Calm Child, Mindful Powers, The Zones of Regulation, Smiling Mind, and so on.
SESSION 1 - EXPERIENCING/SITUATED PRACTICE
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
In the first session, when using educational apps such as Kidoko My Emotions, parents can guide their children in identifying and labeling emotions using the following prompters:
What happens to the character?
What do you do when you’re happy/sad/angry/surprise…?
Would you share your experiences and memories when you feel happy/sad/angry/surprised…?
During the reading, parents can use the following prompters to discuss about the characters in the story with the children:
Is the character in a good mood or a terrible mood?
What do the character's friends do to make him happy?
What is the character's reaction?
SESSION 2 - CONCEPTUALISING/OVERT INSTRUCTION
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the second session, parents can guide the child to relate the character's emotions and actions in the app to daily lives using the following prompters:
How does the character behave when he feels grumpy?
If you were the character, can you figure out why you are grumpy?
SESSION 3 - ANALYSING/CRITICAL FRAMING
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the third session, parents can perform a deep analysis of the narrative in the educational app with children using the following prompters:
- What can you learn from the character?
What can you learn from the whole story?
When you feel bad, do you think learning from others' experiences will work for you?
Why it is important to remain emotionally stable and balanced when you feel bad?
SESSION 4 - APPLYING/TRANSFORMED PRACTICE
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
In the fourth session, parents can guide the child to relate the learning experience of the narratives to daily life by using the following prompters:
Can you role-play the story with me to manage emotions?
What do you think cause you to feel bad?
How can you release emotions in a non-aggressive way?
​
Contributor: QLL