Excited is one of those feelings that can have both a positive and a negative feel. On the one hand, your child can feel excited when they look forward to something fun. On the other hand, excited can also refer to feeling over-stimulated and losing control.  In other words, feeling excited can be pleasant as long as the feeling is manageable.

But when that excited feeling gets out of control in our little ones, it can cause them to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Even as adults we can get excited and say or do things we would not normally do. Similarly, our toddler might tell us, “I really didn’t mean to bite him! We were having fun wrestling and it just happened?”

So what can we, as parents, do to help our children enjoy feeling excited and also learn to manage when excitement starts to get out of control? You are already on the right track if you are helping your child to begin to notice and understand what “excited” feels like in their bodies. This is the beginning of helping your child learn to calm down when they feel out of control with excitement.  See the activity suggestions at right for helping your child if they seem like they are losing control.

This week’s “Feeling Treasure Hunt” activities will focus on helping your child learn about the feeling “excited!”

Activities

Pot o’ Gold

• Find a small pot or jar and decorate it if you wish.

• Find something small that can be the “gold” to add to your “pot” such as pennies, gummies, fish crackers, etc.

• During the week, each time you notice or talk about feeling “excited” be sure to add a piece of “gold” to the pot.

• At the end of the week, you can count/eat the “gold” as you reflect on the “excited” feelings that you noticed all week long.

NOTICE and LABEL “Excited” Throughout the Week

• Watch for times when your child looks like they are feeling excited.  Talk about how they feel and why?  What does their face look like? What does their body feel like?

• Notice times when you yourself feel excited and “talk aloud” about it with your child. Talk about what has made you feel excited.  Point out how your face looks and how your body looks and feels when you are feeling excited.

• Don’t forget to notice and talk about characters on TV and in books who are feeling excited!  Ask your children how they know the character is excited and why they think they might be feeling excited. 

Play “excited” with stuffed animals

• Together with your child choose some stuffed animals, puppets or dolls.

• You might model this activity for your child by choosing a toy and making it say, “I’m excited! I am going to play with my friends at the park.”  Be dramatic and encourage your child to notice how the toy is acting and sounding excited.

• Then invite your child to have the stuffed animals/puppets/dolls act excited and make up a story about why they are excited.

• Follow your child’s lead, but as opportunities arise encourage your child to think about how the puppets body might be feeling and ways to calm down if they are getting too excited.

Act out excited in pretend play scenarios

• Pretend play is a great place to talk about emotions.

• Join in your child’s play and use emotions to talk about the stories they are creating! (" It's time for a birthday party - I'm so excited, are you excited?", "Daddy has to go to work, I'm so sad!")

Take an “excited’ trip to the bathroom

• When it is time to use the bathroom encourage your child to pretend that he/she is feeling excited.

• How would he/she walk to the bathroom in an excited way?

• When your child is washing their hands encourage them to think of something exciting and make an excited face in the mirror.

• Talk about things that would make you and your child excited.

Sing a Feelings Song with Focus on Excited…

Sing the song If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands

If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands
If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands
If you are happy, and you know it then your face will surely show it
If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands.

• Replace happy with excited: Excited – jump up and down.

• Think of other actions that would show excitement and try those out!

• Try to over exaggerate your face, and encourage your child to make the faces along with the body language. So often we focus emotion lessons only on faces, but children’s bodies tell us how they are feeling too.

Play dough Feeling Mat

• Gather play dough, a mirror, paper bags, plates and or construction paper.

• Draw the outline of a head on a paper plate, paper bag or construction paper.

• If you have access to a laminator you might laminate your face outline to use over and over again.  Or you might try contact paper, clear packaging tape or using a large plastic baggie or page protector to protect the face.  If you don’t have a way to protect the face outline just make a new one the next time you want to do the activity.

• Encourage your child to think about a time when they felt excited. Provide a mirror and have your child try to make an excited face in the mirror.  Talk about what his/her mouth and eyes look like when they are feeling excited and encourage them to create an excited face on their playdough face mat.

• Try this same activity creating faces that look calm, angry and happy and worried as a review of previous emotions.  Be sure to talk about how faces and bodies look and feel as well as times when your child has felt these emotions.

Feelings Book

• Talk with your child about times when they have felt excited.

• Show each other what your excited face looks like.

• Either take a picture of your child’s excited face and print it or have your child draw her excited face. (Use a mirror if your child is going to draw his/her face.)

• Protect the picture by slipping it into a plastic baggie (quart size works well).

• You can also make calm, angry and happy and worried face pages to add to your book. (These are the feelings previously talked about in this series.)

• As you learn about new emotions don’t forget to add those pages to your book. You can tape the baggies together along the ziplock seal to create the binding of your book using duct tape or packaging tape.

• Read your feelings book often. Try to help your child remember times when they felt that feeling and share times when you felt the same way.

Activities for too much excitement

• Try to remain calm yourself. Remarkably, if you can remain calm your child’s brain will eventually “mirror” your calm!

• Encourage your child to talk about and notice how their body is feeling and encourage him/her to take some deep breaths.

• Try redirecting your child’s energy in a playful way. Think of something your child loves and encourage him/her to use their energy in pretend play. For example, if they love trains they could pretend to hurry along the tracks to get to the train station to pick up passengers.

• Sometimes it will be necessary to find a calm down/quiet space to help your child relax. This is not a punishment, but a support to help your child regain control of their body.

• Finally, try using some soothing steps such as taking deep belly breaths together, blowing bubbles, rubbing their back, telling a story, or playing with a fidget toy.

Make a list of “Ways to Calm Down”…

• Talk with your child about how sometimes our excited feeling grows so strong that we lose control and start to do things we might not normally do. 

• Help them to make a list of things to do to help their bodies feel better or calm down when they start to feel so excited that they lose control of their bodies.  You might want to remind your child of what a calm body feels like compared to an excited body.

• If your child is not yet reading, you will want to make the list visual.  To do this, instead of writing words on your list you will want to print images/photos/drawings to represent the activities and attach them to the list with glue or tape.

• Post that list in a place where your child will easily see it. 

• When your child is feeling out of control with excitement, take them by the hand and lead them to the list of “ways to calm down.”  Point to each activity on the list and support your child to choose an activity to try that might help him/her to feel better.

• Here is a link to a Calming Activity Choice Poster that you might use as well.

Help Us Calm Down Choices for Children

Help Us Calm Down Choices for Children in Spanish

Make and Use Calming Breathing Cards

Print a set of calming breathing cards from the link below. If you aren’t able to print them, you and your child could make your own cards by drawing pictures of the different types of breathing.

8 Fun Breathing Exercises for Kids at Home or School {Printable}

• Practice the different types of breathing together at different times all day long. Make it fun! Before nap/bedtime or after coming in from outdoor play are great times to use these calming breathing exercises.

• Talk with your child about how their body feels when they are calm and compare that to how their body feels when they are worried.

• Remind your child to use this tool when they are feeling worried.

• Don’t forget to model using the calming breathing exercises when you are feeling worried.  Children learn volumes from what they see us do!

Games that Help your Child Practice Self-Control

• Games are a great way to help your child learn self-control.

• Below is a link to 10 fun, no-prop games that help your child to learn self-control.

10 FUN Self Control Games to Practice Self Regulation Skills (No Equipment Needed)