My Relationship with My Emotions Over Time
TARGET:
12-15 years
INTENSITY:
30 min / 1x per week
LEARNING GOAL
Developing Emotional Awareness When Interacting with Others
PEDAGOGICAL INTENTION
Managing My Emotions When Interacting with Others
Target SKILLS
Socio-emotional Intelligence
Co-Intelligence Human-Human
Metacognition
Well-Being
MATERIALS
Personal emotional regulation history timeline
Regulation philosophy statement
DETAILED PROCEDURE
This activity works best one-on-one, or with one child at a time within a small group. Explain calmly to the child: "By 14, you have enough emotional history to see patterns - how you've regulated emotions across years, which strategies have served you and which have cost you."
Step 1
Have students create a regulation history timeline: significant emotional events from age 9 onward, with the regulation strategy they used and its outcome.
Step 2
Explore these patterns: what are your go-to strategies? (Avoidance, explosion, suppression, processing, humor, movement?) Which actually work?
Step 3
Say gently to the child: "Emotional regulation isn't a skill you learn once. It's a relationship you develop with your emotional life - one that deepens every year if you pay attention."
Step 4
Write a personal emotional regulation philosophy: how I want to relate to my emotions going forward.
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9
Step 10
PROGRESS INDICATORS
The child creates a regulation history timeline with 5+ events.
The child identifies 2 go-to strategies and evaluates their effectiveness honestly.
The child writes a regulation philosophy that is genuinely personal.