Helping children, especially little one’s, find the right words to describe their emotional well-being can be difficult at best for parents and family members. Well, Sesame Street Workshop is expanding their Emotional Well-Being Initiative to give parents extra tools such as videos, articles, digital games, and storybooks that will hopefully arm little one’s with the right words to be able to express their well-being, creating an environment for solid mental and emotional health.
“Sesame Workshop is always committed to filling the greatest needs and we felt very strongly that we needed to really up our response on developing the ‘emotional wellbeing’ of our young children from two points,” Dr. Jeanette Betancourt, the head of U.S. social impact for Sesame Workshop told Parents.com in a recent interview.
Dr. Betancourt continued saying, “The first is what do all young children need—and the adults around them need to understand? And the second is how do we start to identify the key things that show some distress in the form of their big feelings?”
Betancourt also added that “… we’re currently facing a mental health crisis.” Parents need to understand how to help their children now.
So, just how is Sesame Workshop aiming to accomplish this goal?
Well, they are setting out on a mission to provide new resources that will teach adults “emotional literacy” as they keep their child’s perspective in mind. Hopefully, this will aid children and arm them with what they need to be able to start regulating/naming/better communicating emotions at an early age.
“The core of emotional literacy is giving the words for the emotions or the feelings that you’re experiencing and expressing, or the behaviors you’re showing,” Dr. Betancourt explained in her interview. “Even as adults, we don’t just feel the emotion in our head, it sort of trickles down into our body. And using our body, especially with young children, that really helps as well.”
For more information and to view the expanded resources of Sesame Street Workshop’s Emotional Well-Being Initiative, click here. Once again, Sesame Workshop is taking the lead on helping children navigate life.
Photo Credit(s)/Featured Image: Sesame Workshop.org
