Supporting children’s emotional health during back-to-school season

As children return to school, they often experience a mix of excitement and anxiety. Navigating these emotions can be challenging, especially for children and youth who are still learning how to express and cope with their feelings. To offer support, Intermountain Health has emotional well-being resources and tools for families to help children build emotional awareness and resilience.

“We saw this gap within the community where emotional literacy was getting missed, especially around the tween age,” said Stephanie Stokes, Intermountain Community Health manager. “We wanted to facilitate bite-sized learning for adults to start talking to kids about emotions.”

Tools to start the conversation

The Feelings Wheel helps trusted adults look for cues that children are struggling with their emotions and aims to help name the feeling. The wheel includes more than 50 emotions as a starting point for discussions. “Some families tell us they keep the Feelings Wheel on the fridge and use it to check in after school or during dinner,” said Doug Thomas, Intermountain Community Health director. “It can be helpful to ask children questions like, ‘What were two different feelings you had today,’ and ‘How did you handle them?’ It also encourages adults to name their own feelings and respond with more intention and less reaction. It’s a good way to check in with yourself.”

The Hacking Emotional Health Workbook offers exercises with helpful skills to practice for talking about and working through emotional health. From anxiety to trauma response to social health, adults can use it to guide kids through conversations about resilience.

“If kids talk about how they’re feeling earlier, and trusting adults listen and validate those feelings, it helps kids open up sooner and get ahead of a potential crisis experience,” said Stephanie.

The Emotional Wellbeing website and Talk to Tweens videos offer guidance and examples to help adults facilitate discussions on mental health so they can intervene early. As children feel more comfortable talking about their experiences and emotions, adults can spot signs of distress and know what to do next.

Real-life impact

Stephanie shared that during a recent community event focused on family health and fun, hosted by the Boys & Girls Club of Salt Lake City, an elementary school aged child was interacting with the Feelings Wheel and had some meaningful insights.

“This child mirrored the expression for ‘disgust’ when they got to that part of the wheel,” said Stephanie. “When a member of the Community Health team asked them to describe what was happening behind the emotion, the child responded by saying, ‘It looks like how I feel when I’m feeling left out, like I don’t care. But on the inside, I’m feeling like this one,’— pointing out ‘sad.’”

“Helping our community, especially children, learn how to identify, accept, validate, and regulate their emotions is key to a proactive care strategy in addressing the upstream contributors to mental wellbeing,” said Stephanie, “Our Community Health Children’s Health team is doing just that as we help families learn how to recognize and regulate their emotions in healthy ways.”

“When we give families simple, relatable tools, we’re not just helping kids—we’re empowering the adults in their lives to show up with more confidence, connection and compassion,” added Doug. “That’s where real change begins.”

Helpful resources

• Download The Feelings Wheel and the Hacking Emotional Health Workbook.
• Explore our one minute Talk to Tweens videos on emotional health, stress and anxiety, trauma, and social health.
• For back to school support, check out the mental health toolkit from Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital experts.
• Request copies of our emotional wellbeing rack cards in English or Spanish to help raise awareness on the importance of emotional health.

Watch a recent teen mental health video, which brought together six people in Nevada for a real conversation:

 

Additional Support

If your child needs additional support, Intermountain’s behavioral health services — including inpatient and outpatient care, partial hospitalization, and day treatment programs — are all aimed at meeting children where they are and offering the right level of support. Learn about the new Intermountain Health Primary Children's Hospital Behavioral Health Center - Taylorsville Campus, a state-of-the-art, comprehensive Pediatric Behavioral Health Center designed to provide world-class, family-centered care.

Visit Intermountain’s Emotional Wellbeing page for more community resources.