Emotional intelligence seems to have its presence everywhere. Every scholar, business guru, or educators believe: The most important thing people need in today’s world is emotional awareness, sensitivity and street smarts. The buzz around emotional intelligence has grown phenomenally. The next question that comes to my mind is what is emotional intelligence? The most common definition is “The way we perceive emotions in ourselves and others”. The reason for gaining enough attention is: Failure in managing our emotions successfully. We blindly cover up our emotional outbursts without working on it. To be more precise-emotional intelligence implies to the structure linking emotions with other aptitudes, specifically our conventional mental ability.
As discussed above, we as adults fail to manage our emotions in the right way. Another thing that comes to my mind is: Why not inculcate emotional stability in children? So they can be better at it when they turn out to be adults. Very importantly how in children we can build emotional intelligence?
We all are aware of importance of toys in a child’s life. So to teach children about emotions, toys seem to be the best medium. When children play they promote their social competence and also release out their emotions. Play gives children the platform where they explore and interact with the world. They understand and practice verbal and non verbal communication, body language and also emotional releases. When they play with their peers they not only understand their feelings but also others feelings. Apart from play, there are simple ways that can develop your child’s emotional intelligence.
Ways to promote emotional intelligence in children
1. Listening Approach:
The best way to build emotional intelligence in children is through listening. Talk to them about their day to day activity, about their favorite Barbie dolls or Lego blocks.When a new sibling is welcomed in the family, the older one feels left out. Speak to them about this. They let their emotions out and feel there is someone with whom they can share their feelings with.
2. Name those feelings:
Name your child’s feelings. Once your child let their feelings out, explain them about those feelings. Children are aware about their feelings but they do not know how to address those feelings. We as parents need to make them aware of different feelings and how they affect them.
3. Validate emotions:
A key to this entire process is validation of the emotions. If your child feels they are scared of something, ask why they are and tell them, “There is no need to feel scared of this.” It is very important to explain to them that it is okay to feel the way they are feeling. Everybody goes around the same thing.
4. Set an example:
Children love imitating. When they see parents behaving in some manner, they start imitating the same. It becomes very necessary to set the correct example before them. This helps them understand how they should react, when they face the same situation.
5. Practice what you preach:
Before teaching your child about emotions, one needs to be careful with their own emotions. If you feel angry, show that you are angry. When you fell something and behave complete different, it starts confusing your child as in how to respond in a given situation.
Above explains how with keeping these simple things in mind, one can help their child develop emotional importance. To end up I would quote Roosevelt’s quote-“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.”
