4 TIPS to increase kid’s Emotional Intelligence- The importance of Emotional Regulation
Being a mom and coach, made me think about how I can help kids to improve their Emotional Intelligence and allow them to express their emotions in ways they can learn from them. This is not as easy as it looks. My eldest son was four years old when Covid lockdown started in 2020 and though lockdowns are over, we are still seeing the consequences in many kids. One of the most visible effects, according to neuroscientists, is how their levels of frustration tolerance was affected making them considerably lower..
After talking with psychologists and other coaches, we found out that healthy routines need to be established in order to help them release tension and to express their feelings and where adults could listen without dismissing their reactions (good ones or bad ones) and need to be even more comprehensive than we used to be. So questions started to appear… How are we going to achieve that if the day doesn’t seem to have enough hours to pull everything out? How important is it to dedicate time and effort to develop Emotional Intelligence? Well, first of all, we need to be conscious — as adults- about the importance of emotional intelligence, and that is: Emotional intelligence has a decisive influence on our lives. Good emotional intelligence education during childhood can bring our kids future benefits in many areas of life: personal relations, school, sports, among others.
The process of controlling their emotions is called Emotional Regulation. Kids regulating their emotions is essential for their mental health, development, and overall well being. It is important for kids to understand how to identify, recognize, and manage their emotions. When kids have the tools to regulate their emotions, they are able to cope with the stress they may face. Teaching kids how to regulate their emotions starts with teaching them to recognize how they feel.
Secondly, in my opinion, the most important thing if you want to ¨find time to do things you are not able to do because of lack of time¨, you need to be prepared to organize and schedule activities. You can profit greatly from a well-organized routine that establishes limits for work and spare some quality time with your kids. It will also have benefits for you as you can save time for yourself. For example,do some exercise, read, or even sleep!. At this point you are probably wondering how is this going to help your kids? Well, the answer is quite simple: you can not give what you do not have. You can not exercise your own emotional intelligence if you are cranky because you have a lack of sleep and an overdose of stress. So, start improving your own Emotional Intelligence and then you´ll be able to teach your kids how to do so. (I’ve talked about how to improve our Emotional Intelligence in a previous article, I´ll leave you the link in case you want to re-read it or in case you haven’t done it so far )
Kids’ brains are like sponges, they learn quickly and they absorb everything we teach them, not only when we have the intention to teach but also when we don’t.
So observe how you behave and try to identify and recognize things or expressions that you frequently do or say to your kids… It can be scary when we realize they are a ¨mini- version¨of ourselves, but this mirror effect can have positive aspects when we use it correctly. It gives us the chance to see ourselves, which things we want them to copy from us, and which ones we need to change.
But there are also some activities or exercises that we can do to help them to improve their Emotional Intelligence! So let’s go through some of them (according to kid’s age):
1- Create your own Emotions Dictionary
Help your kids identify and name emotions. Define them, say how they are called, when do they usually appear, if there are body sensations related to that feeling or emotion. This can be done with kids of different ages, for example, if your kid knows how to read and write, you can make them write their own Emotions Dictionary and compile them in an Emotions and Feelings Notebook. If your kid is still young and doesn’t know how to read and write, you can print some drawings (or they can draw them) representing the emotions and talk about how they make them feel. When they appear, tell them what happens to you when you have that very same feeling or emotion. Always approve your kid’s feelings, this means you recognize they can feel that way, you understand them (it doesn’t mean you consent to misbehaviors such a punching the little brother or sister, or pushing you, or insulting or breaking things … in this case, you can tell your kids that you understand he or she is frustrated/scared/angry, but that this behavior is not proper).
If you have teenage kids, then a good option is to encourage them to have a diary and write how they felt over the day, write 3 things they liked, 3 things they want to change or didn’t like, and in case they can change them, write down how they would do it.
2- Read Stories where Emotions and Feelings are important or talk about how the main characters felt about a particular situation and their reactions.
This is a very helpful way to allow your kids to see they are not the only ones experiencing certain emotions or feelings. If your kids are old enough you can also ask them how they think a character feels, how do they know that character is feeling that way, if they ever felt that way.Encourage them to pay attention to the character’s body language (the character’s eyes seem sad, or maybe it has a big smile).
If your kids are younger, I recommend a really nice reading: ¨ Glad Monster, Sad Monster¨ by Ed Emberly (My son loves it).
Or you can play with toys and make roll play (This is usually very helpful when bad things happen to them and they are afraid of telling adults, so the can tell us what happened to the ¨doll/ teddy bear or whatever their favorite toy is)
3- Ask your kids if they consider the problem is huge/middle/small
This is especially for younger kids (usually kinder age kids or first years of primary school). This will help you as an adult to measure the magnitude of the feeling or emotion produced by a certain situation. For example, your kid has gone mad after he found there are no more candies in the candy-jar. He/She starts crying, shouting, kicking everything. What shall you do? Getting as mad as they are, is not the best option. So you could try first to put yourself at the same eye level and make eye contact ( you can do this if you get on your knees). Tell them you are sorry, that you can see how frustrating it is for them to want candy and find out there is no more left. Allow them to cry, and after a few moments when they are calming down, ask them whether the fact that there are no more candies is a big problem, a small problem or may-be something in between.It’s probable that at the very beginning they find all problems huge, so in that case, you can present them with another situation that he or she would consider a problem to start to help them to have perspective. After some time, they will start to use that perspective you are offering them, and they´ll adjust their reactions in a better way.
4- Allow them to be creative and use their imagination.
Kids, especially when they are young, have a lot of crazy ideas. It doesn’t matter how crazy they sound, don’t start your answer with a “NO”.
My son once said that he didn’t want the covid-19 situation to continue any longer. — ¨ I will invent a vacuum-cleaner for covid and send it to the Sun in a space shuttle¨ -he said. Of course, I would love such an invention to exist, but the truth is that a four-year-old can’t physically create such a machine. How did that end? Well, we told him he could try to invent his covid-vacuum-cleaner with his blocks. He loved the idea, and tried several prototypes of his invention¨, and he even tried to use it, and he realized that it wasn’t working the way he expected. He told his father so… and then continued playing with something else.
What’s my point with all this? Let them discover the world on their own, even if the house gets a bit messy (use this to also teach them responsibility and get the toys back to their place after playing- don’t do it for them). Let them get some healthy dose of frustration, so they learn how to deal with it when things don’t go as they expected (let’s be honest, as adults, we do face many situations where things don’t go as we hoped for and get frustrated. The questions here are: do we like the way we react? Do we want our kids to react in the same way we do? Do we want them to do better than us?).
I know, all these tips also imply big adjustments in adults’ behavior towards our kids, but consider them the best investment you can do for your kids, get ready to be challenged and explore their world. You will find that the tolerance levels of all family members improve, talking gets easier, trust also increases, because your kids know they can tell you everything. They´ll be able to talk about how they feel and they won’t be punished or grounded just for feeling that way. They’ll know they have someone as reference to go when things go wrong, or when they want to be admired when they are successful or happy. And most importantly, you’ll set an example of how to react to situations, good or bad ones. You´ll be giving them the tools they’ll need for life, you’ll share quality time with them, and when I talk about quality time, it does mean to be 24/7 around your kids, it means that when you do share time with your kids, they’ll be the center of your attention (not your phone or FB ) they’ll know they can count on you and will be heard, understood and will have your guidance, especially, they’ll know they’ll have you.
I hope you found this article useful. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences as a parent/family member/child care giver/teacher on the topic. What have you seen that works? What strategies have you used? What advice would you give? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! I really look forward to hearing your experiences and feedback! Thanks!
