Experiencing emotion: children’s perceptions, reflections and self-regulation

Abstract

Twenty-two children aged 4–11 attended sessions of Somatic Movement Education (incorporating developmental play and movement patterns). They were given the opportunity to express their emotions through movement, and to develop their understanding and processing of emotion through pair work, group work, journaling, mark-making and reflections as part of a phenomenological research project. The children showed that they were able to identify and express their emotions through movement and creative methods. In some cases they were also able to move towards self-regulating their emotions, and articulate their experiences of this clearly.

Keywords:

• Embodied
• emotion
• movement
• children
• education

Notes

1. Details of the method and data generation can be found in the forthcoming paper ‘Using creative methods to encourage reflection in children’ (Leigh, forthcoming).

2. This is the subject of a forthcoming paper.