Giving importance to emotional intelligence when educating a child is a great approach for creating calmness and balance. Before getting into the details of these recommendations I think we should re-analyze the subject when we mention emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is an essential approach allowing us to recognize and manage our own emotions as well as those of the people we relate with in our daily lives, favoring certain attitudes in us, such as empathy, which can make a difference when it comes to building healthy and long-lasting relationships.
Educating children through emotional intelligence is, consequently, primarily a great benefit for their future lives and education (various socio-emotional educational and learning paths are fortunately taking place). What are the recommendations for achieving this? Here are the most important ones:
A child’s negative emotions are not to be condemned or suppressed, since they’re part of his life and will increase naturally as he grows older. A child should instead be assisted precisely in those eventualities where negative behavior occurs. What does this mean in a practical perspective? That in a situation where a child expresses anger and nervousness when facing, for example, a change at school – to a different class group in kindergarten – it’s useful to talk with him and show him that his feelings are normal, but also that changes are normal in life and these situations must be faced in a different way.
This advice goes hand-in-glove with the one described above and is equally important. Emotions should be accepted and understood. Placing them on a lower level will only cause more harm to your children. They should learn to deal with negative feelings and be able to give them a name. By doing so you can help them feel more confident, giving them better tools to face and solve even the most apparently difficult situations.
Be careful with punishments that have the sole purpose of humiliating a child, causing negative emotions such as frustration, which is a natural child’s reaction to a completely incomprehensible behavior of a parent.
To help your children fully develop their emotional intelligence you need to guide them in their understanding of setting limits and possibly be ready to intervene in cases of excessive behavior, without expecting immediate successful results, postponing to a second period and finding a temporary path to calm them down.
A new collection of stories has arrived on Smart Tales to help kids recognize emotions. Come and meet the wise dragon Peng who will accompany your child on the fantastic journey of discovery of fear, joy, sadness and anger.
