Understanding Feelings Through Gingerbread Man Activities for Parents and Kids

Helping children understand their emotions can be a challenge for many parents. Young kids often struggle to express what they feel inside, especially when it comes to recognizing the physical sensations that accompany emotions. Teaching children to identify these bodily signals can improve their emotional awareness and communication skills. One fun and effective way to do this is through a holiday-themed activity using a gingerbread man as a guide.

This blog post will walk you through a simple, hands-on activity that parents can do with their kids to explore how feelings show up in the body. You will also find example language to use during the activity and learn why recognizing these sensations is a crucial step in emotional development.

Why It Matters to Identify Bodily Sensations of Emotions

Children often experience emotions as confusing or overwhelming because they don’t yet have the words or understanding to describe what they feel. Emotions are not just mental states; they come with physical sensations like a racing heart, tight chest, or fluttering stomach. When kids learn to notice these signals, they gain important clues about what they are feeling.

Recognizing bodily sensations helps children:

• Name their emotions more accurately

• Manage strong feelings by understanding their triggers

• Communicate their needs clearly to adults and peers

• Build empathy by noticing how others might feel physically

  
  

For example, a child who feels nervous before a school presentation might notice their stomach feels “like a washing machine” or their hands get sweaty. Naming this sensation helps them connect it to the feeling of anxiety and find ways to calm down.

What Does Research Say?

A recent review of literature conducted by Daikoku and colleagues (2025) found the following:

How Emotions Map onto the Body: The study found that different emotions create distinct patterns of physical sensations across the body, with basic emotions like happiness, sadness, anger, and fear each producing characteristic "body maps" that are remarkably consistent across different cultures.

Three Sources of Bodily Feelings: The researchers propose that emotional sensations come from three systems working together: physiological changes (like heart rate and breathing), motor preparation (the body getting ready to act, such as tensing muscles), and cognitive representations (our learned understanding of what emotions should feel like).

Practical Applications: Body mapping techniques (where people color in body diagrams to show where they feel emotions) proved to be an effective tool for studying emotions across ages and cultures, particularly useful for young children, non-verbal individuals, and cross-cultural research.

Universal Patterns with Individual Variation: While certain emotions showed consistent body patterns across populations (like chest activation for happiness and love), there's also meaningful individual variation in how people experience emotions physically.

Clinical and Educational Relevance: Understanding these bodily emotion maps can help in clinical settings for conditions like autism spectrum disorder, alexithymia (difficulty identifying emotions), and various mental health conditions where emotional awareness is impaired.

The Gingerbread Man Activity: A Fun Way to Explore Feelings

Using a gingerbread man figure or a simple paper cutout, parents can guide children through identifying where different feelings show up in their bodies. This activity is especially fitting during the holiday season, making it engaging and festive.

What You Need

• A gingerbread man cookie, craft, or paper cutout

• Markers or crayons

• Sticky notes or small pieces of paper

• A quiet space to talk and explore feelings

  
  

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Introduce the Gingerbread Man

   Show your child the gingerbread man and explain that just like the gingerbread man has parts of his body, our feelings live in different parts of our bodies too.

   
   

2. Talk About Feelings and Sensations

   Ask your child if they have ever felt something in their body when they were happy, sad, scared, or angry. Give examples like “When I’m excited, my heart beats fast” or “When I’m sad, I feel heavy in my chest.”

   
   

3. Explore Together

   Invite your child to point to parts of the gingerbread man where they think feelings might live. For example, “Where do you think you feel happiness?” or “Where does your body feel scared?”

   
   

4. Draw or Write Sensations

   Use markers or sticky notes to label the gingerbread man with sensations your child describes, such as “warm tummy,” “tight chest,” or “tingly hands.”

   
   

5. Use Example Language

   Encourage your child to say sentences like:

   • “When I feel angry, my fists get tight.”

   • “My tummy feels funny when I’m nervous.”

   • “I feel happy when my heart feels light.”

     
     

6. Reflect and Discuss

   Talk about how noticing these feelings can help them understand what they need, like taking deep breaths when they feel upset or asking for help when scared.

   
   
   
   

Gingerbread man activity showing labeled body parts for feelings

Example Language to Use With Your Child

Using clear and simple language helps children connect sensations to emotions. Here are some phrases parents can use during the activity:

• “Can you tell me what your body feels like when you are happy?”

• “Sometimes when I’m scared, my heart beats really fast. What about you?”

• “Let’s find where your body feels tight or loose when you’re upset.”

• “If your tummy feels funny, what do you think that means?”

• “When you feel calm, how does your body feel?”

  
  

These questions encourage children to slow down and pay attention to their internal experiences. It also models emotional vocabulary and helps build a safe space for sharing feelings.

How This Activity Supports Emotional Growth

This gingerbread man activity does more than just entertain. It builds foundational skills for emotional intelligence:

• Body Awareness: Kids learn to notice physical cues that signal emotions.

• Emotional Vocabulary: Talking about sensations expands the words children use to describe feelings.

• Self-Regulation: Recognizing early signs of emotions helps kids manage reactions before feelings escalate.

• Parent-Child Connection: Sharing this activity strengthens trust and communication between parent and child.

  
  

Children who develop these skills tend to have better social relationships and cope more effectively with stress.

Tips for Making the Most of the Activity

• Keep the tone light and playful to encourage openness.

• Follow your child’s lead; some may want to talk more, others less.

• Use real-life examples from your child’s day to connect sensations to emotions.

• Repeat the activity regularly to reinforce learning.

• Celebrate your child’s efforts to express their feelings, no matter how small.

Beyond the Gingerbread Man: Other Ways to Explore Feelings

Once your child is comfortable with this activity, you can try other creative ways to explore emotions:

• Use stuffed animals or dolls to show where feelings live in their bodies.

• Draw “feeling maps” on paper where kids color areas that feel different with each emotion.

• Practice deep breathing or gentle stretches when noticing certain sensations.

• Read books about emotions and pause to ask how characters might feel in their bodies.

  
  

These activities build on the same idea: emotions are connected to physical sensations, and understanding this helps children grow emotionally.

For more information, check out this research!

Daikoku, T., Minatoya, M., & Tanaka, M. (2025). Mapping Emotional Feeling in the Body: A Tripartite Framework for Understanding the Embodied Mind. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 106469.