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Understanding a friend’s feelings (Anna, Age 7) | Ep. 148
Hi there,
“Reading” other people’s emotions is necessary for navigating the social world, but it’s not easy to figure out what someone else is feeling or why. In this episode, Anna believes her friend is sad, but she doesn’t know what she did to cause that. I talk about seven clues that can help us figure out how someone is feeling as well as the importance of being humble about our guesses.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Dr. Friendtastic for Parents! Your support helps keep the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast free for everyone!
Warm wishes,
Dr. Eileen
P.S. Scroll down for an easy-to-read podcast TRANSCRIPT, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, and how to submit YOUR CHILD’S QUESTION.
P.P.S. Today is the last day to get the discount and bonus for this month’s featured online course: Kid Conflicts: How Parents Can Help.
You might also like these podcast episodes:Ep. 102 - How to express your feelings with friends (Aida, Age 5)
Ep. 97 - How and why to understand a friend’s feelings (Zoya, Age 5)
Ep. 33 - Best ways to show empathy (Richard, Age 11)
Do you love the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast?Here are three ways you can support it:
Send in your child’s question!!!
Post a review on the Apple Podcasts app or your favorite podcast platform.
Become a paid subscriber to help keep the podcast free for everyone. (You’ll get $20 off an online workshop each month plus additional posts for parents.)
Use your smartphone's memo function or an audio app to record your child's question. Hold the phone close to your child's mouth to make sure the recording is clear. Have your child state:
their FIRST NAME (or another first name),
their AGE, and
a BRIEF QUESTION or concern about friendship. (Please do not include any friends' names.)
Submit the audio file at https://DrFriendtastic.com/submit. I’ll answer as many questions as I can. (Obviously, this is not psychotherapy, and it’s not for emergency situations.)
Send in YOUR kid's question
Think-About-It Questions to discuss with your childFor a quick and easy FRIENDSHIP LESSON, play the podcast up to the end of the kid’s question, then ask your child/students what advice they’d give. Play my answer, then use the discussion questions below to deepen your child’s/students’ understanding.
Why is it important to try to understand how a friend is feeling?
What are the seven clues that can tell us how someone is feeling?
Think about a time when someone didn’t understand how you were feeling. How did you handle that situation?
Some people are better than others at communicating about their feelings. Think of the people you know. Whose feelings are easiest to understand? Whose are hardest to guess? Why?
If we care about a friend, we have to care about how they’re feeling. Understanding a friend’s feelings can help us offer comfort, respond to problems, or have fun together.
Do you know the seven clues that can help you figure out how a friend is feeling?
Their facial expression. What’s happening with their mouth, eyes, and eyebrows?
Their body language. What’s their posture like? How are they holding their head, arms, and legs?
The qualities of their voice. Are they speaking loudly and rapidly or slowly and softly? Is their pitch squeaky and high or deeper?
Their words. Sometimes friends will tell us directly, “I’m mad!” or “I’m so excited!”
Their actions or energy level. Are they bouncing around, barely moving, or storming off?
The context or situation. Sometimes we can guess how a friend is feeling because of what’s happening around them.
Your own feelings when you’re with them. Feelings are contagious. We tend to pick up on how others are feeling without even trying. For instance, if we’re around someone who is feeling anxious, sad, or grumpy, we might start to feel anxious, sad, or grumpy, too.
Sometimes, the different emotional clues can contradict each other. You may have heard a friend say the words, “I’m fine,” but when you look at their facial expression and body language, they definitely don’t seem to be feeling fine.
There’s some research suggesting that vocal qualities give us the most accurate clues for guessing someone’s feelings, maybe because they’re harder to control.
Which do you think is the least accurate clue? My guess is our own feelings. Although people are good at picking up on other’s feelings, our own feelings also have lots of other factors affecting them, such as our thoughts and experiences or even how much sleep we got last night. So, we need to be cautious about using that clue.
Take a listen.
(Music & Intro)
Hi there! I’m Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore, also known as Dr. Friendtastic. I’m an author and clinical psychologist based in Princeton, NJ. Each week, on the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast, I answer a question from a kid about making and keeping friends.
If you have a question you’d like me to answer, you can send it in at DrFriendtastic.com/submit.
Let’s listen to today’s question:
Hi, my name is Anna and I’m seven years old. I have a question for you. What do you do if your friend is sad, and you don’t know what you did?
Hi, Anna. Thanks for sending in your question! I’m glad you’re paying attention to your friend’s feelings. That shows you care about her.
I have two questions for you: My first question is, how do you know she’s sad? Did you see her crying? Does her face, body, or tone of voice seem sad? Did she tell you she’s sad?
You may be right that she’s feeling sad, but even with all the clues, we can only guess at how someone else is feeling. Maybe she’s feeling hurt or disappointed or betrayed or ashamed… Maybe she’s having more than one feeling at the same time, like sad and frustrated or sad and jealous.
My second question is, how do you know it’s your actions that led to her feelings? You say you don’t know what you did. It’s possible that whatever she’s feeling now has nothing to do with you. Or, maybe you did something small that normally doesn’t bother her, but because she’s stressed about other things, this time, your small action upset her.
These questions are a little unfair because you can’t really answer them. You can guess, but the only one who can truly know how your friend is feeling and why is…yep…your friend.
Because you care about your friend, my suggestion is that you gently and humbly ask her about her feelings. You could say, “You seem kind of down. What’s going on?” or “You’ve seemed sad ever since yesterday. Did I do something that upset you?” or “It seems like you’re upset about something. What can I do to help?”
Then listen, and try to respond in a caring way. If you accidentally said or did something that hurt her feelings, go ahead and apologize and tell her what you’ll do differently from now on. If she’s upset about something else, just listen and say something like, “Wow, that’s really hard.” You don’t have to fix her feelings, but it might help her to know you understand.
What if she says, “I’m fine,” when it’s clear she’s not feeling fine? That might be a sign that she’s not interested in talking about whatever it is. That’s her choice. You can’t address a problem if you don’t know what it is, but it also might be something that has nothing to do with you.
You could try hanging out with her and talking about other things. Or if she seems to want it, you could give her some space, then try again to hang out with her in a day or two, when she might be feeling less upset.
This has been Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic. You can learn even more about friendship through my funny and practical books for kids: Growing Friendships: A Kids’ Guide to Making and Keeping Friends and Growing Feelings: A Kids’ Guide to Dealing with Emotions About Friends and Other Kids. They’re available through your library or wherever you buy books.
Parents, check the show notes for a link to get my free guide featuring 12 ways to help your child make friends.
Never miss a post! Subscribe NOW!
The Dr. Friendtastic for Parents newsletter and the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast are for educational purposes only. They may or may not be relevant for your particular situation. I trust you to use your judgment about what’s right for your child and your family.
View all episodes
By Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhDHi there,
“Reading” other people’s emotions is necessary for navigating the social world, but it’s not easy to figure out what someone else is feeling or why. In this episode, Anna believes her friend is sad, but she doesn’t know what she did to cause that. I talk about seven clues that can help us figure out how someone is feeling as well as the importance of being humble about our guesses.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Dr. Friendtastic for Parents! Your support helps keep the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast free for everyone!
Warm wishes,
Dr. Eileen
P.S. Scroll down for an easy-to-read podcast TRANSCRIPT, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, and how to submit YOUR CHILD’S QUESTION.
P.P.S. Today is the last day to get the discount and bonus for this month’s featured online course: Kid Conflicts: How Parents Can Help.
You might also like these podcast episodes:Ep. 102 - How to express your feelings with friends (Aida, Age 5)
Ep. 97 - How and why to understand a friend’s feelings (Zoya, Age 5)
Ep. 33 - Best ways to show empathy (Richard, Age 11)
Do you love the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast?Here are three ways you can support it:
Send in your child’s question!!!
Post a review on the Apple Podcasts app or your favorite podcast platform.
Become a paid subscriber to help keep the podcast free for everyone. (You’ll get $20 off an online workshop each month plus additional posts for parents.)
Use your smartphone's memo function or an audio app to record your child's question. Hold the phone close to your child's mouth to make sure the recording is clear. Have your child state:
their FIRST NAME (or another first name),
their AGE, and
a BRIEF QUESTION or concern about friendship. (Please do not include any friends' names.)
Submit the audio file at https://DrFriendtastic.com/submit. I’ll answer as many questions as I can. (Obviously, this is not psychotherapy, and it’s not for emergency situations.)
Send in YOUR kid's question
Think-About-It Questions to discuss with your childFor a quick and easy FRIENDSHIP LESSON, play the podcast up to the end of the kid’s question, then ask your child/students what advice they’d give. Play my answer, then use the discussion questions below to deepen your child’s/students’ understanding.
Why is it important to try to understand how a friend is feeling?
What are the seven clues that can tell us how someone is feeling?
Think about a time when someone didn’t understand how you were feeling. How did you handle that situation?
Some people are better than others at communicating about their feelings. Think of the people you know. Whose feelings are easiest to understand? Whose are hardest to guess? Why?
If we care about a friend, we have to care about how they’re feeling. Understanding a friend’s feelings can help us offer comfort, respond to problems, or have fun together.
Do you know the seven clues that can help you figure out how a friend is feeling?
Their facial expression. What’s happening with their mouth, eyes, and eyebrows?
Their body language. What’s their posture like? How are they holding their head, arms, and legs?
The qualities of their voice. Are they speaking loudly and rapidly or slowly and softly? Is their pitch squeaky and high or deeper?
Their words. Sometimes friends will tell us directly, “I’m mad!” or “I’m so excited!”
Their actions or energy level. Are they bouncing around, barely moving, or storming off?
The context or situation. Sometimes we can guess how a friend is feeling because of what’s happening around them.
Your own feelings when you’re with them. Feelings are contagious. We tend to pick up on how others are feeling without even trying. For instance, if we’re around someone who is feeling anxious, sad, or grumpy, we might start to feel anxious, sad, or grumpy, too.
Sometimes, the different emotional clues can contradict each other. You may have heard a friend say the words, “I’m fine,” but when you look at their facial expression and body language, they definitely don’t seem to be feeling fine.
There’s some research suggesting that vocal qualities give us the most accurate clues for guessing someone’s feelings, maybe because they’re harder to control.
Which do you think is the least accurate clue? My guess is our own feelings. Although people are good at picking up on other’s feelings, our own feelings also have lots of other factors affecting them, such as our thoughts and experiences or even how much sleep we got last night. So, we need to be cautious about using that clue.
Take a listen.
(Music & Intro)
Hi there! I’m Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore, also known as Dr. Friendtastic. I’m an author and clinical psychologist based in Princeton, NJ. Each week, on the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast, I answer a question from a kid about making and keeping friends.
If you have a question you’d like me to answer, you can send it in at DrFriendtastic.com/submit.
Let’s listen to today’s question:
Hi, my name is Anna and I’m seven years old. I have a question for you. What do you do if your friend is sad, and you don’t know what you did?
Hi, Anna. Thanks for sending in your question! I’m glad you’re paying attention to your friend’s feelings. That shows you care about her.
I have two questions for you: My first question is, how do you know she’s sad? Did you see her crying? Does her face, body, or tone of voice seem sad? Did she tell you she’s sad?
You may be right that she’s feeling sad, but even with all the clues, we can only guess at how someone else is feeling. Maybe she’s feeling hurt or disappointed or betrayed or ashamed… Maybe she’s having more than one feeling at the same time, like sad and frustrated or sad and jealous.
My second question is, how do you know it’s your actions that led to her feelings? You say you don’t know what you did. It’s possible that whatever she’s feeling now has nothing to do with you. Or, maybe you did something small that normally doesn’t bother her, but because she’s stressed about other things, this time, your small action upset her.
These questions are a little unfair because you can’t really answer them. You can guess, but the only one who can truly know how your friend is feeling and why is…yep…your friend.
Because you care about your friend, my suggestion is that you gently and humbly ask her about her feelings. You could say, “You seem kind of down. What’s going on?” or “You’ve seemed sad ever since yesterday. Did I do something that upset you?” or “It seems like you’re upset about something. What can I do to help?”
Then listen, and try to respond in a caring way. If you accidentally said or did something that hurt her feelings, go ahead and apologize and tell her what you’ll do differently from now on. If she’s upset about something else, just listen and say something like, “Wow, that’s really hard.” You don’t have to fix her feelings, but it might help her to know you understand.
What if she says, “I’m fine,” when it’s clear she’s not feeling fine? That might be a sign that she’s not interested in talking about whatever it is. That’s her choice. You can’t address a problem if you don’t know what it is, but it also might be something that has nothing to do with you.
You could try hanging out with her and talking about other things. Or if she seems to want it, you could give her some space, then try again to hang out with her in a day or two, when she might be feeling less upset.
This has been Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic. You can learn even more about friendship through my funny and practical books for kids: Growing Friendships: A Kids’ Guide to Making and Keeping Friends and Growing Feelings: A Kids’ Guide to Dealing with Emotions About Friends and Other Kids. They’re available through your library or wherever you buy books.
Parents, check the show notes for a link to get my free guide featuring 12 ways to help your child make friends.
Never miss a post! Subscribe NOW!
The Dr. Friendtastic for Parents newsletter and the Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic podcast are for educational purposes only. They may or may not be relevant for your particular situation. I trust you to use your judgment about what’s right for your child and your family.