Children experience the same emotions as adults. They can feel everything from happiness to sadness to anger to nervousness to even stress. However unlike adults, many children do not understand how to effectively deal with the range of emotions they experience. Just like other life skills parents pass onto their children, it is also important for parents to help their children be “emotionally intelligent.” What does it mean to have emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence means that you are able to:
- Recognize what emotion you or another person is feeling
- Evaluate if you like the emotion you are feeling
- Effectively manage your emotions
- Be aware of how emotions influence your own and others’ behavior
- Be able to consistently calm yourself down or comfort others
Studies have shown that there are many positive health benefits to being an emotionally intelligent person. Some of the benefits include:
- Able to interact well with others and build healthy relationships
- Better able to lead others and be effective managers
- Work collaboratively in teams
- Have a stronger sense of empathy and compassion
- More resilient and flexible
- Able to self-regulate and control their emotions as needed
It is important for parents to nurture their children’s emotional intelligence just like they support their children learning other life skills.
Now that we know how important emotional intelligence is, how can parents foster it in their children?
Here are some practical ideas to help raise emotionally intelligent children:
- Help your children name their emotions and its context. Help your children identify what they are feeling and the environment the feeling occurred in. It is important to do this with both good and uncomfortable emotions. You talk through this with your children during dinner or breakfast. You can also have them write it down or draw it out.
- Make a game out of it. Take turns playing emotional charades by picking an emotion then acting it out. Once the person identifies the correct emotion, they have to name a time that they felt that emotion.
- Model talking about emotions and dealing with them. Children are like sponges and soak up everything around them. They will learn lessons about how to deal with emotions from watching you. Tell your children about your day, how you are feeling, and be open about how you handled it. When you’re upset, don’t hide it from your children. Show them how you are feeling, and show them healthy ways to calm yourself down.
Identify emotions and moods you encounter around you then talk about it. - Visit the Children’s Museum of Atlanta. The Children’s Museum is hosting a visiting exhibit that helps kids learn and talk about emotions in a playful way. Beat the summer heat, and enjoy a visit before school gets too hectic. More information and directions can be found in the link below.
Laura Lebovitz
LLebovitz @ GROWcounseling.com
