Emotional Pain Chart

Because I have three children, I regularly visit doctor's offices and hospital emergency rooms. Out of my three children, one of them has Type 1 diabetes and gets sick frequently.  In fact, he gets so sick that he often has pain in his body from a build up of Ketones in his blood from high sugar levels. When he is very ill, the doctor will ask my child this question, "On a scale from one to ten, how would you describe your pain?"  Not only will the doctor ask that question once, but he would ask it several times during our visit. 

As I was sitting in the emergency room, I saw a pain chart on the wall that the medical staff used with my child.  All of the sudden it hit me that this same method can be used to measure emotions in our students when they are in emotional pain.  As physical pain changes from moment to moment so can emotional pain. When students come to my office in a crisis, I regularly check on their emotional state to see if they are able to return to their day, if they need more time to get back to equilibrium, or if they need more help then I can give them. 

Since it is not easy to determine if students have reached emotional equilibrium, it is important to gather this information from the students instead of making assumptions. To do this effectively, I have created some emotion rating scale posters to hang in my office. Instead of using a clock or outward appearance, I will use these posters to help make a determination if the student has reached equilibrium. 

Here are some examples of different emotional rating scale charts I have created. If you decide to use them, I would love to get some feedback!