In traditional schooling, there is a huge amount of emphasis on academic development. While conventional intelligence is incredibly important, emotional intelligence is key to raising a well-rounded, compassionate child.
In this article, I will explore seven ways you can nurture your child’s emotional intelligence.
For children, and even for some adults, emotions can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Encourage your child to identify the emotions they’re experiencing and put a name to their feelings. This can help them express their emotions in a healthy way and will also contribute to good communication skills.
You can help embed new words for emotions by helping your child to identify how they’re feeling. For example, if a party gets cancelled, asking them if they feel disappointed can allow them to identify this emotion.
If your child is experiencing difficult or overwhelming emotions, it can sometimes be tempting to downplay how they feel. However, brushing off your child’s emotions with a nonchalant “don’t cry” or “it’s not a big deal” can be damaging, dismissive and teach your child that their feelings are wrong.
Instead, try to validate their feelings by mentioning times when you’ve felt how they’re feeling. “When a child feels as though you’re understanding of their emotions, they’re less likely to act out by throwing a tantrum and more likely to verbally explain what they’re going through,” explains Charlotte Smith, psychology writer at State of writing review and Revieweal.
Include some different ways to engage your child and improve their mental and social capabilities like through meaningful activities and games. Educational games, such as those offered by SKIDOS, help children to see things from other perspectives and are fantastic for encouraging empathy and compassion.
For most well-adjusted adults, the difference between acceptable and non-acceptable ways of expressing feelings is straightforward. For children, however, the line can sometimes be blurry. The most effective way to teach children how to express their feelings in a healthy way is to model this behavior yourself.
If something has made you upset or annoyed you, discuss it with your child frankly. “By normalizing this expression and discussing your feelings, you will teach your child that communication is a healthy way to express difficult emotions. And instead of yelling or breaking things or throwing tantrums, kids should voice it and talk it out.”, says Natalie Anderson, educator at OX Essays and Elite assignment help.
Equip your child with a range of psychological skills to help them deal with a wide variety of emotions in different situations. For example, an effective, age-appropriate way to encourage your child to regulate their feelings is to help them create a box of soothing activities. When they’re feeling nervous or angry, they can utilize the contents of this box to calm themselves down and cope with their emotions. Coloring books, stuffed animals and musical items are all great things to add to the box. Most importantly, be there as a guide and support to fall back on for your child, without being too intrusive or persuasive in any way.
As a parent, the urge to jump in and solve your child’s problems for them can be overwhelming. However, cultivating problem solving-skills is the key to raising an emotionally intelligent child.
Instead of solving their problems yourself, try to guide them on how to do it themselves. Help them to come up with a few possible solutions and work together with them to identify the best course of action. By providing guidance when needed, but letting your child come to their own solution, their belief in their ability to solve their own problems will be strengthened. This is the best way you can help your child to be prepared for future challenges.
Do not encourage your child to suppress their emotions ever. Bottling things up leads to pent up frustration and anger, which may then be expressed in unhealthy ways. It also results in sudden reactions and unreasonable tantrums. As children get older, feeling comfortable in voicing their emotions is the key to forming successful relationships, so encouraging the discussion of emotions in your household is vital.
Fostering emotional intelligence is a life-long journey. As your child is growing up, use real-life situations as talking points to promote emotional intelligence. Sometimes mistakes can present the best opportunities for learning.
SKIDOS offers a range of games that focus on emotions for children between 2 and 11 years of age. So throughout many stages of childhood, these games offer the perfect opportunity to blend in fun with learning while promoting emotional intelligence subtly into their conscious mannerism.
Emotional intelligence is crucial to raising a happy, successful child. Using the ideas above, you can incorporate emotional intelligence development into the kid’s daily life. It also helps you to equip your child with a gift of confidence and self-belief that will have their back throughout their lives.
Christina Lee is a writer at Top essay writing services and a project manager at Do my assignment and Big Assignments. Her areas of expertise include marketing news, and tools and technologies for marketing.
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