I have a social skills group I lead once per week. It consists of Kindergarten and 1st graders. We have worked through all the Wee Thinkers from Social Thinking, so now as the school year is winding down, I'm adding in some other sessions. Today we talked about INTEROCEPTION.
You've never heard of this "sense?" Well, it's all the rage now in the therapy world. It is the ability to notice physical sensations coming from inside your body.
In the past we have done a lesson on Whole Body Listing (see previous post), and one of my smarty smartersons in the group raised his hand and said we already learned how to listen WITH our bodies. He was right, of course. But I explained to him that today we were going to learn how to listen TO our bodies.
I have broken up this topic into four lessons. Lesson 1 - watch a video and introduce the idea of listening TO your body. Lesson 2 - Discussing what different body sensations are and where we might feel them in our bodies when having different emotions. Lesson 3 - Discuss different body sensations and how everyone feels those sensations differently when they experience an emotion. Lesson 4 - Using the concepts of the zones of regulation and coping skills, we are now going to put together what and where we feel body sensations with emotions and the use of coping skills. (see previous post). You can't decide what coping skill to use until you can feel it in your body.
Interoception is a pre-cursor to self-regulation. If you don't "feel" the emotions in your body, then how can you control your emotions? Answer - you can't. You will be a slave to your emotions and ride the ups and downs without any control or ability to predict how your body will react to an emotion. Empowering kids (and adults) to recognize and take control over their own emotions is a very important life skill.
Click on the picture below for the lesson plan and worksheets:
For more information about interoception check out this book:
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