Let’s start with – What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is “the ability to identify your own emotions and the emotions of others.” EI allows kids to act on their feelings effectively. This key ability can help kids with learning and thinking differences work through their challenges.

When emotions run high, people do and say things they normally would not. When you’re a young child, this is what you do all the time.

Emotional self-regulation, a large component of emotional intelligence, is the ability to manage one’s experience and expression of emotions. With practice, children improve their capacity for emotional self-regulation. By age four, most children start to use strategies to eliminate disturbing external stimuli. In other words, they cover their eyes when they’re scared and plug their ears when they hear a loud noise.

It’s not until age 10 that children consistently use more complex strategies for emotional self-regulation. These strategies can be broken down into two simplistic categories: those that attempt to solve the problem and those that attempt to tolerate the emotion.

When a child can make a change to address a problem, they engage in problem-focused coping by identifying the trouble and making a plan for dealing with it. When they deem the problem unsolvable, they engage in emotion-focused coping by working to tolerate and control distress.

All of these strategies are part of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses awareness, understanding, and the ability to express and manage one’s emotions.

So, let’s look at 6 ways in which parents can teach EI to their kids:

1.       Acknowledge and empathize:

Even if you can’t “do anything” about your child’s upsets, empathize. Just being understood helps humans let go of troubling emotions. If your child’s upset seems out of proportion to the situation, remember that we all store up emotions and then let ourselves experience them once we find a haven. Then we’re free to move on.

Empathizing doesn’t mean you agree, just that you see it from his side, too. He may have to do what you say, but he’s entitled to his perspective. We all know how good it feels to have our position acknowledged; somehow it just makes it easier when we don’t get our way.

Few examples for better understanding can be.

“It’s hard for you to stop playing and come to dinner, but it’s time now.”

“You’re so disappointed that it’s raining.”

“Even I couldn’t resist chocolates, but I know you are smarter than me.”

Feeling understood triggers soothing biochemicals; that neural pathway you’re strengthening each time he feels soothed is what he’ll use to soothe himself as he gets older.

Children develop empathy by experiencing it from others.

You’re helping your child reflect on his experience and what triggers his feelings. For little ones, just knowing there’s a name for their feeling is an early tool in learning to manage the emotions that flood them.

2.       Allow expression:

Little ones cannot differentiate between their emotions and their “selves.” Accept your child’s emotions, rather than denying or minimizing them, which gives children the message that some feelings are shameful or unacceptable.

Disapproving of her fear or anger won’t stop her from having those feelings, but it may well force her to repress them. Unfortunately, repressed feelings don’t fade away, as feelings do that have been freely expressed. They’re trapped and looking for a way out. Because they aren’t under conscious control, they pop out unmodulated, when a child socks her sister, has nightmares or develops a nervous tic.

Instead, teach that the full range of feelings is understandable and part of being human, even while some actions must be limited.

An example could be; “You seem worried about the field trip today. I used to get nervous on field trips too, in kindergarten. Want to tell me about it?”

Why and how this encourages EI?

Well, your acceptance helps your child accept her own emotions, which is what allows us to resolve our feelings and move on, so she is better able to regulate her own emotions.

Your acceptance teaches your child that her emotional life is not dangerous, is not shameful, and in fact, is universal and manageable. The kid learns that she is not alone.

3.       Listen to them carefully:

Remember, rage doesn’t begin to dissipate until it feels heard. Whether your child is 6 months or sixteen, she needs you to listen to the feelings she’s expressing. Once she feels and expresses them, she’ll let them go and get on with her life. You’ll be amazed at how affectionate and cooperative she’ll be once she has a chance to show you how she feels. But to feel safe letting those feelings up and out, she needs to know you’re fully present and listening. Assured that it’s safe, children have an amazing ability to let their feelings wash over and out, leaving them relaxed and cooperative. Your job? Breathe through it, stay present, and resist the urge to make those troublesome feelings go away. Your child instinctively knows how to heal herself.

A simple example could be; “I know you are mad and want to scream and yell and cry, you have your reasons I’m sure but a buddy just know that you can talk them out with me, I’m right here for you”

Or “You seem so unhappy right now. Everybody gets upset sometimes… I’m right here. Tell me about it.”

The point is, when we help our children feel safe enough to feel and express their emotions, we not only heal their psyches and bodies; we help them trust their emotional process so that they can handle their own emotions as they get older, without tantrums or repression.

4. Problem-solving :

Teach your child to breathe through them, feel them, tolerate them without needing to act on them, and, once they aren’t in the grip of strong emotion, to problem-solve and act if necessary. Most of the time, once kids (and adults) feel their emotions are understood and accepted, the feelings lose their charge and begin to dissipate. This leaves an opening for problem-solving. Sometimes, kids can do this themselves.

Sometimes, they need your help to brainstorm. But resist the urge to rush in and handle the problem for them unless they ask you to; that gives him the message that you don’t have confidence in his ability to handle it himself.

Kids need to express their feelings, but they also need to know how to shift gears to find constructive solutions to problems. That takes practice and modelling on our part.

Research shows that simply empathizing with our kids is insufficient to teach them to manage their feelings because they still feel at the mercy of their emotions. Teaching kids to honour their feelings as signals about things they need to handle differently in their lives empowers kids.

5.       Play it out:

When you notice a negative pattern developing, recognize that your child has some big feelings she doesn’t know how to handle, and step in with the best medicine: Play.

For instance, let’s have a situational example:

Let’s say your four years old always wants Mommy. Instead of taking it personally, help him work through his feelings about how much he prefers Mom by playing a game where poor bumbling Dad “tries” unsuccessfully to keep him away from her. Dad gets between Mom and son, and roars “I won’t let you get to Mom…. Hey, you just ran right around me!… You pushed me right over!… You are too strong! But this time you won’t get past me!”

Your four-year-old will giggle and boast and get a chance to prove he can ALWAYS have his mom. He’ll also discharge all those pent-up worries that make him demand her.

See how you encouraged your ward with emotional intelligence?

All children experience big feelings daily. They often feel powerless and pushed around, angry, sad, frightened, or jealous. Emotionally healthy kids process these feelings with play, which is how little ones of all species learn.

Your child can’t put his deeper emotional conflicts into words; that’s tough even for most adults. But he can play them out symbolically and resolve them without even needing to talk about them.

Laughter releases stress hormones just as well as tears — and is a lot more fun.

6.       Regulate Your Own Emotions.

Children won’t always do what you say, but they will always, eventually, do what you do. Kids learn emotional regulation from us. When we stay calm, it teaches our child that there’s no emergency, even if she feels like there is at the moment.

Of course, you can’t stay calm when you’re running on empty. That’s why maintaining our sense of well-being is one of our most important parenting responsibilities.

Most of us keep it together fairly well until our child gets upset. Remind yourself that you don’t have to “fix” your child’s upset or stop your child’s emotions. Instead, just accept what they’re feeling and maintain your equilibrium.

For example: “I know this makes you very unhappy and I hate looking at you like this. I wish we could play more but it is time to say Goodbye to Monopoly and say Hi to a new story. I’m sure you can handle this because you will love today’s story for sure. Come on, it’s Storytime!”

See what you did there? Simply regulated your kid’s emotions. The child’s brain is learning to calm and soothe itself in response to the parent role-modelling self-regulation.

When we set limits with an understanding of the child’s perspective, the child is less likely to resist the limits. When kids give up what they want to follow our limits, they’re building the neural pathways for self-regulation.

Often, emotional intelligence can change the outcome of a frustrating situation from a tantrum-filled, crying, or inbuilt frustrating day to one that is full of communication, help, and growth for the child and his family.

An emotionally intelligent child grows up to be a better individual in the future and is liked by all. He/she even has a sense of self, the ability to empathize with others, and most importantly, he is social, which is a basic skill that is useful for life. There are too many good reasons to work on your child’s emotional intelligence. Try these tips to make your little fella emotionally intelligent and see him grow into a kind person.