Posted on 12/08/2021
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is a huge factor in a person's overall perceived quality of life and success in both professional and personal arenas. The groundwork for a person's emotional intelligence as an adult is laid during the childhood years and begins with the ability to label his or her emotions. A person's ability to identify one's own emotions starts with developing an emotional vocabulary, as we began to discuss in our previous post in this series. These concepts can be introduced in simple, playful ways. After your child becomes comfortable with naming various emotions, the next step is to tie that new skill with self-awareness.
Developing a Higher EQ, Step 2: Recognizing Emotions
Once you've practiced labeling emotions in this playful way, you can begin modeling naming your own emotions out loud. You might say something like, "Wow, I'm really disappointed that it rained today. I was hoping we would be able to go to the park." The next step would be to use words to describe your child's emotions as you observe them. When your child lashes out at a sibling after losing a family board game, you could say something like this: "You seem frustrated or angry about not winning the game, so you're taking it out on your sister. Am I right?" Of course, it's not just negative emotions that we want to express and develop a vocabulary for. Words like "calm" and "confident" can also be empowering! For older children, a more robust vocabulary may be helpful to develop.
The goal here is to help your child learn to recognize their own emotions, and you'll need to remember that labeling emotions in developmentally appropriate ways is a beginning step designed to help guide them toward that goal. As with any new skill, higher emotional intelligence will require baby steps at first, and we want to reward even small successes with praise. So when your child begins to identify his or her own emotions, we want to reward that step.
Developing a Higher EQ, Step 3: Demonstrating Empathy
As any teacher knows, modeling is a key to helping others develop a new skill and to encourage growth in any area. As we discussed in a previous post, emotional repression is not the goal. Expressing empathy builds on the labeling step by validating your child's emotions and showing them that you understand and care. For instance, perhaps your child wants a new must-have toy that his or her classmates have. Maybe you can't afford it or have other reasons for withholding this item from your child, at least for now, and your child is sad or angry with you as a result.
You could come close and put your arm around your child (if that connects to his or her love language - something we'll talk about soon!) and let your child know that you realize that it's frustrating to not be able to get something you want or others have. You could let them know that you feel or have felt the same way about a certain item and share how you talk yourself out of focusing on the thing you want but can't have for whatever reason. When your child feels understood and cared for, that can reduce the compulsion to use negative behaviors to express their frustration.
Continue reading with Part 4.
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