Be careful in connecting these two ideas with kids so that they don’t get the idea that some emotions are bad and some are good. Here’s a round-up of some of the other ideas and printables that I found with suggestions for variations: The idea of drawing your emotions as characters is similar to another intervention that I have shared about in the past in which children externalize and draw a problem such as anger, OCD, or anxiety. Encourage them to consider whether a memory is colored by more that one feeling (you can remind them that we see this in Riley’s mind at the end of the movie).ĭownload my free printable “ Inside Out Feelings Journal” for a template. Children can keep a daily journal to draw and write about their memories and feelings. Memory and Feelings Journal: In the movie, we see Riley’s memories each stored in a sphere that is colored to match the emotion of the memory. Again, this is could easily be adapted for drawing, painting, or 3D creation. A family can work together to draw their “Family Island.” Or a child can create one or more of their own personality islands. After you have the characters created, you could give various scenarios and have the child role play what each emotion would say in the situation decide which emotion(s) they should listen to.ĭraw Your Islands: The movie show’s the core of Riley’s personality as five islands that include her values, traits, and interests. This could be a 2D activity with drawing or paint or sculpt the characters for a 3D activity. See Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions for some more ideas. Add more feelings characters if they want – there’s no need to stick to the movie’s basic five of joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust.

Children can illustrate their own characters for the feelings and assign a color to each one. I wanted to share some of the ideas that I have come across and talk about creative ways to incorporate Inside Out into therapy.ĭraw/create Your Feelings: Inside Out has five primary emotion characters – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust.

Lots of therapists, school counselors, and parents have been looking at and creating activities based on Inside Out to help kids talk about and understand emotions. Parents can easily fall into the habit of encouraging kids to not be angry or get over their sadness, but instead should remind kids that each of our feelings has an important role to play and should be honored (Dan Kois wrote a great Slate article on this). I loved it and have also loved how it has helped children in my therapy practice to talk about their emotions and understand the value of all of their feelings. Therapists, counselors, parents, and kids all seem to enjoy the movie Inside Out.

Inside out movie worksheets pdf