Tonight with your 5 to 8 year old
The prompt
“How is calm different from excited inside your body? Can you show me both?”
What to listen for
If they can physically demonstrate a difference, still shoulders versus bouncy hands, they're building real awareness of how feelings actually live in their body, which helps them manage big emotions later.
If they mix the two up or say they feel the same, that's useful information, not a failure, it means naming body sensations is still new territory worth practicing together.
If they say "I don't know," try acting out calm and excited yourself and ask them to guess which is which, it turns it into a game instead of a test.
What this tells you
How clearly they can tell calm and excited apart in their body shows how much language they have yet for managing their own feelings.