Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

How do you raise a child to be emotionally intelligent?  What is involved in developing this aspect of our children?  Have you ever stopped to think about how your parenting might impact the emotional intelligence of your child?

Bringing up children is complicated. 

We want them to be happy, confident, independent, resilient. 

We want them to have friends, be at ease socially and form healthy relationships with others.  We want them be self-aware, to feel secure and be resilient.  And the list could go on and on.

Where does Emotional Intelligence come in?  

Research has shown that the development of a child’s emotional intelligence is critically important for their future happiness and success. 

Emotional intelligence is a person’s ability to manage his or her own emotions in a healthy way.

According to Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ,” it “includes self-awareness and impulse control, persistence, zeal and motivation, empathy and social deftness.  These are the qualities that mark people who excel:  whose relationships flourish, who are stars in the workplace.”

Our children’s lives are filled with emotional moments which offer opportunities for the positive development of their emotional intelligence.  For example, managing anxiety on the first day of school or before an exam, managing anger when another child does something they feel is unjust, managing disappointment when they don’t get what they want, managing excitement the night before going on holiday….

Emotions are neither good nor bad in themselves.  

There are definitely some emotions that we would generally prefer our children not to have to experience, such as anger, jealousy, fear, disappointment. 

However, we cannot make our children be happy all of the time.  The reality is that these emotions do occur and when they do, isn’t it better that our children are able to identify their feelings and be equipped to work through them rather than deny the feelings and let them manifest themselves in an unconstructive way (often misbehaviour)? 

A lot of misbehaviour is prompted by strong emotions and poor emotion-management.  If we can help our children deal with their emotions constructively, then we can also pro-actively prevent a lot of misbehaviour.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But how do we teach our children to identify the feelings they have, why they might be feeling that way and what they can do about it?  All the while remaining understanding, empathetic and connected to them whilst doing so?  This is often SO challenging to do in the heat of the moment.  The positive parenting tool we use to do this is called Emotion Coaching.

Here are the 5 key steps of Emotion Coaching:

• Take a deep breath

  When you see your child having an emotional moment, the first thing to do is to take a moment for yourself so that you can regulate your own emotions.  Recognise that they are experiencing a strong emotion and remember that you are their role-model and there to help them through this experience.  It won’t help them if you throw your own emotional outburst out there as a reaction to theirs.

• Listen to what your child is saying

  Really pay attention and listen.  Be aware of your own body language and eye contact and the message these are giving to your child.  Be in the moment with them.

• Imagine what your child is feeling

  Put yourself in their place.  You can be empathetic with your child when you understand their perspective.  If your child feels that you “get” them, they are more likely to listen to you and take comfort and guidance from you.

• Help identify the emotion(s) your child is experiencing

  If you think about it, we as adults often experience strong emotions and aren’t really sure at the time what we’re feeling – this is especially the case when we’re anxious, nervous, excited, jealous or disappointed.  It can be tough to identify these “bad” emotions.  Imagine then how tough this might be for your child, who has limited life and language experience.  Helping them build up their emotional vocabulary is important for their self-awareness, so they can put a name to the feeling and identify future emotional experiences faster.

• Problem-solve solutions

  Rather than just telling your child what they can do feel better, why not help them problem-solve and come up with solutions of their own?  Children are more likely to think a solution is a good idea to try when they come up with it on their own.  And if they can’t for whatever reason, help them to problem-solve.  You can use suggestive language “Maybe… Do you think…Perhaps…” and/or offer choices “do you think it would help if you did x or y?”. 

Why do we use emotion coaching?  Well, the alternative is to react to our child by dismissing, ignoring or contradicting their feelings, judging, criticising, blaming or even punishing them.   

Neuroscientific and behavioural research has proven that this can make our children less likely to communicate their feelings to us in the future and can also lead to bigger social and emotional issues down the road including low self-esteem, withdrawal, anxiety, depression, nervousness and aggression.

By using emotion coaching, you help develop your child’s emotional intelligence, including self- awareness, self-control and problem-solving skills that proactively sets them up to be empathetic, compassionate, understanding and resilient individuals. 

Using this positive parenting tool also helps your child believe that you really do love them unconditionally, no matter what kind of ugly emotions they have! 

It normalises emotions, keeps your lines of communication open and strengthens your relationship with your child. 

Surely that’s enough to motivate you to try?

You CAN do this!  It is WORTH it.  Your child is worth it.