This may not be for everyone but acting out situations can be a great way of telling stories and learning about feelings.

When a child is feeling sad and you feel up to the exercise, try acting out a story that they are familiar with.

For example act out, the three little pigs. The child joins in and soon the attention goes to the drama and the child's attention is taken from their first preoccupations.

When the dramatisation is over you can suggest "now you seemed sad . Are you feeling better now?”

Another acting out is through finger puppets. Children enjoy becoming the character and sometimes discuss their feelings through the puppets. I have seen this dramatic activity done also with plastic gloves and the child draws the characters, firstly on the fingers of the gloves.

Using drama is about transferring the feeling onto the character and talking through the emotions. I have always found that children who struggle to express themselves and don't feel confident around peers show a great interest in drama and often excel in this field. They thoroughly enjoy taking on another character and expressing them in a public way.

No surprises that many of our famous actors were not confident children in their own right.