Emotional ladder picture for children & teens: instructions

What is an emotional ladder?

An emotional ladder is a way of visualising how strong your emotions are.

As you feel an emotion more strongly, the higher up the ladder you go. And as emotions become less intense, you go down the ladder.

You can make a picture of an emotional ladder to use with your child.

How an emotional ladder picture can help your child

Sometimes your child might feel emotions more strongly than at other times.

An emotional ladder picture can help you and your child understand how strong their emotions are. When you understand this, you and your child can work out:

how much support your child needs to manage their emotions
what strategies will help your child to manage their emotions.

For example, if your child is feeling mild emotions, they’ll be on the lower steps of the emotional ladder. At this level, your child might be able to use strategies to manage their emotions independently or with only a little help from you.

But if your child is feeling strong emotions and is on the higher steps of the ladder, they’ll probably need support and time to reset.

An emotional ladder picture can be particularly helpful for children who regularly experience strong emotions. This might include some children with disability or ADHD, autistic children, children with other additional needs, and children who’ve experienced significant stress or trauma.

What you need for an emotional ladder picture

You and your child can do an emotional ladder picture together. It’s best to create the emotional ladder picture when your child is feeling calm and ready to do the activity.

You’ll need:

a large piece of paper
pencils or felt-tip pens.

How to make an emotional ladder picture

You can create an emotional ladder for any emotion. Here’s an example for anger.

First, draw or ask your child to draw a picture of a ladder.

Next, number each rung on the ladder from 1 to 5, and add a label:

Step 1 is not angry – everything is OK.
Step 2 is a little angry – for example, when I forget to take my homework to school.
Step 3 is moderately angry – for example, when someone is mean and plays a joke on me.
Step 4 is very angry – for example, when someone pushes me over on purpose.
Step 5 is extremely angry, and I’m going to explode like a volcano – for example, when someone deliberately rips up my work.

Here’s an example of an emotional ladder picture for anger. Download and print this emotional ladder picture (PDF: 358.9kb).

This image was generated using ChatGPT.

How to use an emotional ladder picture with your child: tips

You can use an emotional ladder picture to help your child learn to listen to their body and connect their emotions to their physical feelings. It’s good to use the ladder regularly to talk about how your child is feeling.

Here are tips:

Check the ladder when your child is feeling relatively calm. This can help your child recognise that their emotions go up and down in strength.
Encourage your child to think about how their body feels on different steps. You could share how you feel. For example, ‘When I’m feeling angry and I’m on step 3, my face feels warm and my heart beats faster. What do you notice in your body when you’re feeling moderately angry?’
Ask your child what situations might be linked to different steps. For example, ‘I’ve noticed sometimes you look angry when we’re in a hurry. Which step do you think you’re on when that happens?’
Talk with your child about what helps them on different steps. For example, ‘When you’re on step 1 and 2, and you feel only a little angry, what could you do to climb back down the ladder?’ or ‘When you’re on step 5, I’ve noticed that having a quiet cuddle with your favourite toy seems to help. Is that right?’
After your child has experienced a strong emotion, use the ladder to talk about how they felt. It’s best to do this afterwards because your child might not be able to listen or engage with the ladder while they’re experiencing the emotion.
Use ‘ladder’ language when you’re talking about emotions. For example, you could talk about emotions ‘climbing up the ladder’, or ask your child how you can work together to help them ‘climb down the ladder’.

Adapting a ladder picture for children of different ages or children with diverse abilities

How you use an emotional ladder picture will depend on your child’s age and their ability to recognise and respond to their emotions.

Here are ways to adapt an emotional ladder picture if your child is younger, has disability or ADHD, is autistic, or has other additional needs:

Use pictures instead of words for the labels. For example, the label on rung 1 could be a smiley face emoji, and the label on rung 5 could be an enraged face or exploding head emoji.
Instead of a ladder, use a thermometer picture with temperature levels and labels instead of ladder rungs, or a series of shapes like circles going from small to big.