The Emotional Wheel isn't spinning- You are.

 In middle school, there are a lot of emotions and hormones flying around. Sometimes a student will be so upset they can't even tell you what's wrong. Now what? 
"Are you angry?"  "I'M NOT ANGRY I'M SCARED!"
"Why are you scared?" I'M NOT! I'M JUST SAD!"
The emotions are spinning- so which one is it?

I think it's important to be able to place a name on an emotion. It's important because once we can name an emotion, then we can work toward bringing us back to the center. Enter- The Emotion Wheel. There is a full-sized Emotion Wheel at the bottom of this post and there are thousands of different versions of them for various ages. They are all basically the same in that the core emotion is in the center and more detailed emotions radiate from that central point.

The younger the person, the closer to the center you will be in describing your emotion. A younger student may only be able to express that they are, ANGRY whereas an older student/adult will be able to move further out and describe that they feel HURT or even further out describing their emotion as EMBARRASSED.
Being able to process an event and identify the emotions attached to that event can be very helpful. For example, if a middle school student is not invited to a birthday party, they could feel several things from EMBARRASSED, INSECURE, etc. These emotions all point back to the fact that they are ANGRY. They could also be experiencing the core emotion of SAD, depending on their reaction.

You can also work the wheel from the outside working in toward the core emotion. Perhaps a student feels very INADEQUATE after failing a test when most of their classmates did well. That can be traced toward the center as either REJECTED or INSECURE, and they both share the core value of FEAR. So why are they scared? Are they scared that they will get in trouble at home? Are they scared that their friends will think they are stupid? These are questions that are one step removed from, "what's wrong?" and questions that can start to have reasonable answers when the world seems unreasonable. 

After a student can name the emotion, then they can get to work swinging the emotional pendulum back to the center by answering those questions.

"Will I get in trouble at home?"
"Well- Last time I had to sit in my room without my phone and study what I messed up so I could get points back on test corrections."

"Will my friends think I'm stupid?"
"They never have before, so they probably won't this time."

Deescalating emotions starts with being able to even know what they are. Simply knowing that they are feeling something like FEAR, SUPRISE, or ANGER can help them start to manage their emotion. 

So how do they manage their emotions?
That's a topic for another day...
Share your thoughts and resources in the comments below!