We learn to feel on our own

When babies learn to speak, they have to learn a variety of words for common objects. Of course they have to learn “mom” and “dad”, and maybe they also learn “doggie” and “blanket” and “house.” Somewhere along the way we stop teaching word by word and children just start to pick them up. We never question how children learn to name their feelings and articulate them the same way we do.

We know they learn to identify the feeling of hunger at any early age. Thirst too. And it is essential that they recognize the feeling of having to go to the bathroom! At some point they learn the feeling of sexual desire. They learn frustration, joy, regret, disgust. They learn the feeling of being overwhelmed. They learn anger. Hopefully they learn confidence. They learn haste, relaxation, fear, loss and on and on.

Children learn these labels for these emotions over the course of their lifetime. No one points these things out. No one says to the child, what you are feeling right now is called “frustration”, just like they might say, that animal over there is a “FROG”. This is why, when we ask a child how they are feeling about something, they have no idea. We might as well ask them to name an object they’ve never seen before.