We Can Feel Both (3 Worksheets)
Your child just got the 1st seed on their soccer team — starting as a midfielder for the first time. They should be thrilled, right? But instead, they burst into tears. They're excited and worried. Happy and sad to leave their old spot on the bench with their friends. Proud and nervous about whether they'll live up to the expectation.
The human emotional experience is almost never just one thing at a time — and yet, for most of childhood (and honestly, adulthood too), we receive the message that feelings come one by one, clearly labeled, neatly resolved.
However, we can — and regularly do — feel multiple emotions, even contradictory ones, simultaneously. And teaching kids this simple but profound truth may be one of the most important emotional literacy lessons we give them.
The movie Inside Out was developmentally accurate. The film's central arc is Riley learning that Joy and Sadness can and must work together. This mirrors what researchers call the 'dialectical model of emotion' — the idea that seemingly opposite emotions don't cancel each other out; rather, they coexist and inform one another.
When children are only given emotional language that comes one feeling at a time — 'Are you happy or sad?' — they learn to flatten their experience to fit the options they're given. Over time, this can lead to:
Emotional suppression: picking the 'right' feeling to name and pushing the rest down
Shame about complexity: 'I shouldn't feel sad, I should be happy about this.'
Confusion and dysregulation: when the emotion they're supposed to feel doesn't match what's happening in their body
Difficulty with transitions, endings, and ambiguous experiences (like graduation, or a best friend moving away)
Research found that people who accept and acknowledge emotional complexity tend to demonstrate greater emotional regulation and psychological well-being — outcomes we absolutely want for the children in our care.
Developmental Windows for Teaching This
While even toddlers can experience mixed emotions (think: excited AND scared of the Easter Bunny), the cognitive capacity to understand and articulate ambivalence typically develops in stages:
Ages 3–5: Can name basic emotions; begin to understand that feelings change
Ages 6–8: Begin to understand that two emotions can follow each other quickly; start to recognize feelings as distinct from situations
Ages 8–10: Can understand that two feelings can exist at the same time about the same event
Ages 10+: Can understand ambivalence about relationships, roles, and identity — including contradictory feelings about the same person
This doesn't mean we wait to introduce the concept. Planting the seed early — normalizing that 'you can feel two things at once' — creates the cognitive scaffold children need as their emotional understanding matures.
"We Can Feel Both" Bug Worksheets
One of the simplest and most effective ways to introduce this concept is through creative, body-based activities that don't require sophisticated language
The "We Can Feel Both" Worksheets present children with bugs divided down the middle. Color one side to represent one emotion, and one side to represent another — because the butterfly, ladybug and beetle can feel both.
It seems simple. It is simple. And it's also doing a lot of heavy clinical lifting:
It normalizes mixed emotions without requiring a child to confess or explain their own
It uses projective distance — the butterfly feels both, not 'you' — which reduces shame and defensiveness
It builds emotional vocabulary through color choice, body language, and symbolic representation
It opens the door for conversation: 'Have you ever felt two things at once?'
It can be adapted to any emotion pair — happy/scared, excited/nervous, proud/sad
This kind of activity is appropriate for individual therapy, group work, classroom settings, or home use. It requires no special equipment, no clinical training to initiate, and no right answers. Just space, color, and the permission to be complicated.
🦋 Butterfly (Sad + Happy) — leans into transitions, bittersweet experiences, and mixed milestone feelings
🪲 Beetle (Angry + Sad) — explores anger as a protector with sadness underneath; trauma-informed framing
🐞 Ladybug (Worried + Excited) — somatic awareness of how those two feelings overlap in the body; great for anxiety work
Guiding Questions:
🦋 Butterfly — Sad + Happy
Which color feels like happy to you? What makes you choose that one?
What color feels like sad? Is sad always the same color or does it change?
This butterfly gets to feel both at the same time. Is that weird, or does it make sense to you?
I wonder what the butterfly might be thinking right now, feeling both of those things at once.
Look at your butterfly — does one side feel stronger, or do they feel about equal?
When do you think this butterfly might feel both sad and happy? Can you imagine a story for them? Has anything like that ever happened to you or someone you know?
If the butterfly could talk, what do you think it would say about holding both feelings?
What would you want to say to this butterfly if you met it?
Is it okay for the butterfly to feel both? Why or why not? What about you — is it okay for kids to feel both things at once?
🪲 Beetle — Angry + Sad
What does angry look like as a color for you? Is it always the same or does it change?
Does sad look different from angry, or are they kind of close together?
This beetle is feeling both at the same time. Do you think that can really happen?
Do you think people can ever feel angry AND sad — or does one feeling come first?
Sometimes when we feel really angry, there might be sadness hiding underneath. I wonder if this beetle's anger is protecting something sad? What do you think might make someone feel angry on the outside but sad on the inside?
If the beetle stomped its feet really hard — what do you think it's upset about?
If the beetle cried — what do you think it might be sad about? Are those the same thing or different things?
What would help this beetle the most right now — someone to be angry with, or someone to be sad with?
Have you ever felt angry and sad at the same time? You don't have to share — but if you wanted to, I'm listening.
🐞 Ladybug — Worried + Excited
What color is excitement for you? Is it the same as happy or different?
What color is worry? Is it a quiet color or a loud one?
What do you think the ladybug might be about to do — something exciting AND a little scary?
Can you think of something that would make you feel both at the same time?
Sometimes excited and worried feel really similar in our bodies — like butterflies in our tummy. Can you tell them apart in your body? Where does excitement live? What about worry?
If this ladybug is about to do something new, what advice would you give them?
Is it braver to do something even when you're worried, or is it smarter to wait until you're not worried?
What would help the ladybug's worried side feel safer? What would help the excited side feel bigger?
Have you ever been really excited about something but also nervous? What did you do?
Closing (any worksheet)
Now that you know feelings can come in pairs, I wonder if you'll notice that more this week?
If you catch yourself feeling two things at once this week, what might you do?
Is there anyone in your life you could tell about this?
What would you want other kids to know about feeling two things at the same time?
If we made a different bug activity, what two feelings would YOU put together? Why those?
Check out other sources:
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gottman, J., & DeClaire, J. (1997). Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. Simon & Schuster.
Grossmann, I. (2021). Wisdom and how to cultivate it. Review of General Psychology, 26(3).
Harter, S., & Buddin, B. J. (1987). Children's understanding of the simultaneity of two emotions: A five-stage developmental acquisition sequence. Developmental Psychology, 23(3), 388–399.
Larsen, J. T., McGraw, A. P., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2001). Can people feel happy and sad at the same time? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4), 684–696.
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford Press.
Peng, M., & Johnson, C. N. (1994). Understanding of ownership rights and use in young children. Cognitive Development, 9(2), 177–196.
