The 5 Point Scale

Remember, it is tough for your child to articulate their emotions, especially when they are younger as a lot of what is happening is new and very frightening. As a child, they don't know how to explain that they are getting ANXIOUS to them their emotions are just mad, upset or scared. This is why the system one of Chelsea’s therapists worked with her on, and we implemented in the home, car, and general life was a HUGE success for all of us.

The 5 Point Scale with numbers, colours and faces.

A scale from 1 – 5 with 1 being – Calm and Easy and 5 DANGER I CAN’T

Printable 5 point scale - click on picture

#5 RED “Impossible to HANDLE – NOT EASY – NOT READY.

#4 ORANGE “ Really hard for me. I will need lots of HELP to work on this.

#3 YELLOW “Hard for me. I CAN try and work on this”

#2 BLUE “With a plan I CAN do this on my own”

#1 GREEN “I’m calm I CAN do this totally on my own, its easy”

As you can imagine, RED is at the point with our daughter that she is at her worst and everything is just too much to handle.

It's important to remember that we ALL have 1,2,3,4 and sometimes even 5's throughout a day depending on our own personal emotions but learning to accurately rate those experiences and connect the signals that go with anxiety can be hard for the younger child. So referring to either the numbers, colours or for even younger children (see picture) the different faces of emotions, is a great way to build on being able to learn useful strategies for each level.  

By creating your own scale, you can customize each level and work with your child to develop the scale using their own words and rating the emotions. This can be changed as they become older, and their emotions change. For younger children, it can be as simple as 3 steps and colours.  You can add to this at any age with:

My anxiety Looks like – My anxiety Feels like – I can try to.

Using the scale as a visual reminder for children can help them to identify their own feeling and emotions. Encourage your child to rate themselves throughout the day and to work on relaxation techniques to help bring them back to a comfortable level. Remember to Validate Validate - Active Listening your child’s ability to recognize their emotions and level of anxiety.

Introducing the scale during calm times and by teaching your child and explaining to the teachers that a colour can represent their level of emotion/anxiety means that they are not necessarily drawing attention to themselves if they are beginning to spiral, and can not necessarily articulate their emotions in front of others. All they have to do is point, and it will automatically be understood that they need support in some form.

Practice checking in every now and again when your child is not anxious and playing different scenarios will help them learn the scale.  If the teacher is in tune with this, it can significantly benefit your child and make them feel that they have help if needed and not drawing attention to the rest of the class if they just need some space for example.

Once we were able to establish and customize the scale, for Chelsea, it was great being able to have a visual reminder that could help identify her feelings and emotions when she was unable to express them herself. Having the scale and ideas on how to help, was a way for everyone to understand what Chelsea needed at that time and for there to be consistency in all environments, home, school, dance etc. Actually, I have to say it was really the only thing that worked for us for a period of time as a family and especially for Chelsea.

MENTAL HEALTH #mentalhealth #anxiety #anxietybc #mentalhealthbc