Five apps help kids learn about emotions
Is your child afraid of the dark? Does she worry about being different? Is he anxious? Are there days when anger and negativity seem to bubble out?
Most children experience common childhood fears while also actively trying to make sense of the social and emotional landscape in which they are living. Talking to your children about their emotional and social responses is very important; but sometimes parents need a springboard to get that conversation started. Mobile apps can help.
Here is a list of five apps that cover social and emotional learning (known as SEL in education circles). These kid apps are clever in how they place characters into emotionally charged situations, and then have them learn how to model good behavior.
1. Daniel Tiger's Grr-ific Feelings
PBS Kids, best for ages 3-5, $2.99, iPad
Rating: 4 stars (out of 4)
With adorable Daniel Tiger leading the way, kids explore 18 different emotions. The app features a music video for each emotion, showing a character experiencing the emotion and then offering advice on how to manage it. Both negative feelings (mad, frustrated, afraid, worried, jealous and such) and positive ones (love, thankful, helpful, etc.) are demonstrated. Kids apply this learning to a trolley car game where they become the one to help other characters. They can also paint pictures and take photos to express their emotions.
Daniel Tiger's Grr-ific Feelings app is terrific because it both identifies and then teaches kids how to respond to a wide range of emotions. And it does it in a manner that is so welcoming and accepting.
Bonus Tip: For Android users, try Avokiddo Emotions for young children, and Middle School Confidential 2: Real Friends vs. the Other Kind for tweens and teens.
2. DisMonster — Catch the shadow!
Jordi Antonijuan Artigas, best for ages 6-10, $2.99, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Rating: 4 stars
For the children who are afraid of the dark, DisMonster helps to alleviate those fears by putting kids in charge of disassembling weird shadowing figures. Players explore three rooms, each containing 24 shadow-puppet puzzles. Kids solve each puzzle by finding the real objects that combine to make the shadow monster. Each puzzle seems like a mini-mystery, as kids scour the room to find the needed objects before the battery in their flashlight runs out.
The puzzles get progressively harder, thus challenging kids' visual perception skills. For an added bonus, the app offers a "create" mode where kids can combine real objects to create their own shadow art. As kids disassemble the monsters, they may also disassemble their own fears of the dark.
Bonus Tip: For other apps that help alleviate childhood fears, click here for a list.
Watermark, best for ages 5-8, $2.99, iPad
Rating: 4 stars
Using a big powerful bull as its protagonist, Angus the Irritable Bull introduces kids to an angry character. Angus is huffy, gruff and miffed, but he doesn't know why. From his farmer owner to the female cows on the farm, everyone tiptoes around this grumpy animal. When a little bird bravely lands on Angus' back, she discovers and then removes a thorn in his side.
By finding the source of Angus' anger, readers watch Angus go from irritable to positively delightful. Delivered with stunning illustrations, fun hot spots of animation and words that highlight when read, this book app is a great way to talk about how to diffuse anger by finding its cause.
Bonus Tip: For other apps that deal with turning negative emotions into positive ones, try The Unstealer (on iOS and Android) and Gigglebug (iOS).
4. Wince — Don't Feed the WorryBug
iMagine Machine, best for ages 4-8, $2.99, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Rating: 4 stars
Little monster Wince represents the worry-wart in all of us. When Wince's worries start to build up, he is confronted by an unwanted visitor — the WorryBug. The WorryBug feeds on Wince's constant worrying, so readers see it grow from the size of a fly to a looming presence that is larger than Wince.
This charming 20-page story shows kids how to manage their own worrying by seeing Wince get the help of others and being busy doing things in his own life. With no worries to feed it, the WorryBug shrink and eventually Wince is able to banish it from his life. Wince — Don't Feed the WorryBug jumpstarts a conversation about worrying by allowing kids to record their own worries so they too can identify and then learn to manage them.
Bonus Tip: For another app about a famous worrier, check out The Monster at the End of This Book … Starring Grover!
Wee Society LLC, best for ages 3-7, $2.99, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Rating: 4 stars
This book app introduces 24 quirky characters to demonstrate the point that we are all different and that our differences are what makes each of us special. While enjoying the rhyming verse, kids meet characters with an extra eye, glasses, a purple tooth, a "ginormous" smile, different colored skins (including all the colors of the rainbow) and no hair. One is from outer space and another lives in the ocean.
Kids get in on the action of discovering each character's "you-thing." By tapping a character, children uncover that character's uniqueness, such as watching as the boy Paul fill the screen because he is extra tall. Wee You-Things is a great way to start a conversation about why each person (including the reader) is special; and why it is important to respect those who are different from you.
Jinny Gudmundsen is the editor of www.TechwithKids.com and author of iPad Apps for Kids, a For Dummies book. Contact her at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her @JinnyGudmundsen.