By Makieda Mckenzie, Cope With School NYC 2024 Summer Intern
For many children, back-to-school time represents a source of anxiety and navigating foreign emotions. Whether it’s starting school for the first time, attending a new school or even just fear of starting a new grade, children are faced with unfamiliar situations and must learn how to respond. Inside Out 2, a family-friendly sequel to Inside Out, can act as a medium for teaching children how to name their emotions and effective emotional regulation strategies. The skills taught in the film help prepare them for coping with back to school, sets them up to have a positive experience and promotes overall success.
The movie follows Riley, the protagonist, who is about to enter high school, at a pre-season training session for hockey. Riley fears social interaction with the older girls, worries about making the team and overall struggles with dealing with new anxieties. Young children can learn from her experiences and understand social and academic fears in an age-appropriate way.
One key factor in the importance of Inside Out 2 lies in the introduction of anxiety as a new character, encouraging children to name the fears they experience. Anxiety, a foreign and fundamental emotion children are introduced to at an early age is important for them to learn to name. From the toddler years, children start recognizing the things they are afraid of and view them as much larger than themselves. Inside out, which humanizes emotions, allows kids to recognize the way that anxiety is inside them, and teaches them to work through the feelings. The introduction of the emotion, in a named way, is a child-friendly way to discuss how anxiety slowly becomes more prominent as children get older. Importantly, the fears Riley feels are correlated with starting school which can help children feel as if she is a relatable character. The relatability factor will help them work through back-to-school fears and confront moving forward to have a successful school year. Parents can use the film to introduce the emotional regulation skill of emotion identification. Further, children can recognize anxiety as complex and learn to have it guide them rather than control them. Inside Out 2 is rudimentary and can be watched by the whole family and subsequently, followed up with a discussion of what anxieties children are feeling before going back to school.
Significantly, the film teaches the coping strategy of emotional unification-the concept of recognizing all your emotions as one. As a young child, it’s easy to feel that your fears overwhelm you, and difficult to consider your fears as working in-tandem with your other emotions. Riley, the main character, initially struggles with this, as anxiety literally takes control of her emotional control center but eventually her emotions realize anxiety cannot be the one in control all the time. Instead emotions need to work together to guide us into making self-preserving but beneficial choices. This lesson can help children cope through teaching them to not let their anxieties surrounding school overwhelm the excitement of a new year with a new start. As parents, it’s important to remember that children don’t yet have the cognitive capacity for understanding their complex emotions. Making it even more important to use a film like Inside Out 2 which introduces children to advanced thought processes surrounding emotions without overwhelming them in a way they will not understand. Children can learn how to lead with all their emotions through broader parent-child conversation about the lessons they can take away from the movie.
Inside Out 2 is an enjoyable and especially helpful movie for families to watch. It prepares children for naming, coping with and moving past their fears surrounding back to school time. Some helpful discussion questions to ask your children after the movie are: 1) Do you relate to Riley in any way? Is there anything that makes you similarly afraid? 2) What can you tell me about anxiety and how it affects our thinking? 3) What are some things that make you happy regarding going back to school that can help balance the anxiety you feel? Overall, parents can use the film as a guiding tool in developing fundamental emotional regulation skills and a launching point for meaningful conversations about feelings.
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