Aleasa Word Shares The Roadmap to Better Social & Decision Making Skills for Kids
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Emotional intelligence (EQ) training is definitely on the rise. From coaching to assessment practitioners, you’ll find more and more people talking about the other way of being intelligent. Studies even consistently show emotional intelligence is becoming much more important than IQ because it relates directly to better decision making, happiness and both financial and life success. No matter how intelligent people are as it relates to their IQ, there are a great number of people who struggle in every day life because their IQ and EQ don’t match.
As parents there are so many different things we can do to help our children become better at life while making the road a little easier. One of those things is to help increase our children’s emotional intelligence as they age. This is not something we thought of generations ago; however, as we know better the hope is that we will do better.
Some would caution that emotions have no place in business but they are present whether we want to deal with them or not and they affect our behaviors. Much like the big elephant the room they are often viewed as something that is there though no one will acknowledge their presence even if they change the way people navigate around things.
To begin discussing what emotional intelligence is and how it plays into every day life, we will begin with the basic elements of emotional intelligence:
- Self awareness: The ability to recognize your own thoughts and emotions objectively to make better, more effective choices.
- Self motivation: Deciding consciously to stay the course in regardless of challenges, personal doubts and distractions is a key ingredient in the emotional intelligence pie. intelligence.
- Empathy: This includes the ability to recognize emotions and feelings in others and choose an appropriate course of action.
- Relationship Management & Navigation: This aspect deals with conflict resolution, treating others appropriately, and receiving the same in return.
- Self-regulation: An emotionally healthy person knows how to manage their own moods appropriately and successfully.
As important as the qualities above are, without the proper strategy for making them a reality the possibility of helping your child to be the most emotionally intelligent they can be will be nothing more than a simple hope. As we treat other things in life like school and physical healthy as a matter of importance we must align ourselves to do the same when it comes to the importance of our children’s emotional intelligence as well. Once our children leave the safe cocoon of our homes the ability to self-manage their emotions and understand the concepts of relationship management will take them far no matter where they are.
The following list of strategies will give you a leg up as a parent in helping your child become more emotionally intelligent.
- Show children it’s ok to talk about how they feel: There used to be a saying children should be seen and not heard. When this comes to emotional health, this simply isn’t healthy. Lead by example and give age appropriate statements about how you feel at certain times to help them identify their own feelings and ask questions regularly.
- Teach children to recognize and articulate emotions: We all want to be heard. When we aren’t heard this creates conflict because our needs aren’t being met. As we know every act is the consequence of a need being met or unmet. Use every day events to help teach your child to identify emotions, thus validating their needs and showing them how to label them for what they are so they can manage them better. An example would be if they are screaming when you tell them good news, discuss the feeling of excitement.
- Show children to quickly see stress responses in their bodies: We all have a set of responses in our bodies that signal stress. The same is true for children. Most often children will cry as they are learning to articulate their feelings and signs of distress. Some kids alternative may lash out physically. Begin pointing out the response your kids have when things happen so they can start to understand themselves better. An example would be “you get very cranky when you’re not able to figure things out easily.”
- Teachable moments are best when in the thick of things: Kids who know that emotions full of a higher intensity are signals of an unmet need. Use when possible the event while is happening to teach your kids about pausing to handle the emotion behind their responses to stimuli causing them distress. Ask questions like “what can we do to make this a better situation?”
Because we live in a world full of so much technology and sadly the fear of community predators, it is easy for us to shelter our children more than ever. In doing so, we often remove the opportunity for easier social development for our children when they engage in healthy interacting with other children and the outside world. It is extremely important to remember the need to build our children’s emotional intelligence as it will be the navigation system for the as they age and make decisions while engaging gin relationships whether personal or professional. Give them the tools they need to be successful and always lead by example. Remember studies show that people with higher emotional intelligence include those who have empathy and impulse control .To include those in your daily life creates a recipe for increased success overall.
Photo: Davidd/Flickr