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Does learning about your emotions help you feel better?

30th January - 06th February 2025

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59012

Total votes

12858

5-11 votes

46154

11-16+ votes

To mark Children's Mental Health Week, we asked young people to discuss emotional literacy and lessons designed to unpack the range of emotional responses we experience. The awareness week is organised by Place2Be and took place between 3rd-9th February 2025, with the theme "Know Yourself. Grow Yourself." The lessons highlighted that you can learn emotions in different ways, such as experiencing them first-hand or reading about them in books. Young people then had the opportunity to assess the numerous ways you can come to understand and learn more about the emotions you feel, including sharing, listening and keeping a record of your feelings.

Primary 7-11, Secondary and College voters discussed, "Does learning about your emotions help you feel better?", while Primary 5-7 voters considered, "Does learning about your emotions help you?"

59,012 young people voted on this topic.

Learning emotions child

Age 5-11 voter

If we are sad/lonely/upset we can understand how to cope and who to talk to. Also you can learn about new emotions you may not understand/have had yet and how to deal with them.

Learning emotions teen

Age 11-16 voter

Knowing why you feel a certain way helps you deal with that emotion and help you know what else you may feel next.

Learning emotions student

Age 11-16 voter

Everyone experiences emotions in a different way - what helps someone might not help everyone.

Feedback from our Impact Partners...

Thank you to Place2Be, Barnardos, Co-op Young Members and ParentKind for responding to young people's voices on this VoteTopic!

“This was a great discussion with children and young people from all over the country taking part. There was lots of debate and some really interesting points made. Everyone recognised that mental health is a big issue in schools with some children and young people telling us that schools talk about this a lot. What is really interesting from the 59,000 votes (that is 3 out of every 500 children at school in the UK!) is that younger children really felt learning about emotions was important but a majority of older children said it wasn’t. This might be because older children recognise their emotions but still need help dealing with them when they get too much. Thank you for a great discussion.”

Frank Young, Director of Policy and Research at ParentKind

58% of 7-11-year olds said learning about their emotions helps them to feel better.

  • 81% of Primary voters aged 5-7 voted 'Yes' to the question, "Does learning about your emotions help you?"
  • Meanwhile, a little under 3/5 Primary 7-11-year olds voted 'Yes' to the question, "Does learning about your emotions help you feel better."
68% of Secondary students voted 'No' to the question, "Does learning about your emotions help you feel better?"

  • Interestingly, the majority of Secondary students voted 'No' to the question, "Does learning about your emotions help you feel better?"
  • Secondary students were the only group to have a majority 'No' vote this week. 55% of College students voted 'Yes' to the same question.
Some students said it can be difficult to confront their emotions by talking about them.

  • Many 'No' voters said that talking about emotions can exacerbate them and leave them feeling worse.
  • Others stressed that it depends on the form of learning and the people it involves.
  • Secondary students in particular wanted to highlight the difference between learning about emotions and learning about how to handle them, with the latter being preferable.
  • Many students also said that everyone is different and therefore cope with emotions in different ways, meaning any learning around the topic should encompass multiple options.
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