Why is emotional intelligence so important for my child?
In this article, we examine the importance of emotional intelligence, and we give tips on how to foster it in children as they develop.
What is emotional intelligence?
According to the Institute for Health and Human Potential, emotional intelligence can be defined as “the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions, as well as recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others”. This means to have the awareness that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people, and this can either happen in a positive or negative way.
Emotional intelligence is known to be extremely beneficial in the workplace, where it is key to cooperate correctly with your team. Indeed, lack of emotional intelligence translates into people’s inability to get past their differences and see from others’ point of view. The result is a series of negative consequences that eventually influence individual disposition, employee morale, and organizational effectiveness.
Other aspects of our lives positively affected from high levels of emotional intelligence are:
- School: similarly to the workplace, being able to manage our and others emotions helps cooperating, meeting tight deadlines, motivating ourselves and others and managing stressful situations.
- Physical Health: managing stress becomes extremely crucial in those individuals who suffer from this condition the most. People who experience high levels of stress are more inclined to health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, infertility and accelerated aging process.
- Mental Health: uncontrolled emotions can make you more vulnerable to anxiety and depression. This is due to the fact that people who lack empathy often struggle to form strong and healthy relationships. This can in its turn leave them feeling lonely and isolated.
Many might think of emotional intelligence as a skill which we naturally develop as we grow and learn. However, this is not the case: researches on the environment of the workplace have found that, as our society becomes more diverse, employees are required to develop skills of social and emotional intelligence in order to successfully cooperate and create a pleasant and collaborative working environment. However, in 2018 Forbes found that 70% of employees are actively disengaged at work, and 53% of them consider themselves unhappy.
Big companies such as Tesla, PepsiCo, Virgin Group or Microsoft have - already for some time now - teamed up with experts in the field of emotional intelligence in order to train their employees in this sense. This practice has proven to be successful not only in improving companies’ overall employee satisfaction levels, but also their profits and performance. For such reasons, emotional intelligence is often either tested by employers during the pre-hiring process, or encouraged with dedicated training in the workplace.
How can I raise an emotionally intelligent child?
As mentioned, emotional intelligence is not only relevant in the workplace, but is a skill that can be mastered at any age, and it is important to become familiarized with it as soon as possible. As a parent, there are actions you can take to raise an emotionally intelligent kid. Here are some:
1. Label Emotions: learning to recognise and appoint your own and other people's emotions is the first step to mastering emotional intelligence. An example of how to teach your child to do so is to ask them questions about their mood when they are experiencing particular emotions. For example, if your child is upset about a lost game, you might want to ask him/her “It looks like you feel really angry right now. Is that right?”. Similarly, to help them learn to recognise other people’s emotions, you might want to ask them questions about what they think that emotion they are witnessing means. This can be done either in real-life situations as well as whilst watching a movie or TV show. Indeed, as kids’ TV programmes and movies often aim to educate by offering good examples of behaviour, learning about emotional intelligence through those tools might be additionally beneficial in terms of one’s reaction to negative experiences. In practical terms, while your child might witness another child’s tantrum and imitate their reaction, kids' content often offers much more peaceful versions of negative emotions. This could therefore represent a better example of behaviour for your child, especially in the early years of their life.
2. Show Empathy: a useful approach to validate your child’s feelings is to show empathy. Even in situations where you might be confused regarding the reason for their reactions, whether positive or negative, it is important to let them know that it is ok to express their feelings. If you fail to empathise, you minimize their reactions or openly tell them that you don’t understand their feelings, they might start thinking that the way they feel about things is wrong or they’ll feel less compelled to show you their emotions through their behaviour.
3. Develop Problem-Solving Skills: when it comes to negative emotions, many people believe that preventing your child from witnessing emotions such as sadness or anger will help them focus on positive emotions. This is wrong: at some point in our lives, we all experience moments of sadness or anxiety, therefore it is important to learn how to cope with those moments as soon as possible. A child that has never been exposed to a stressful situation, won’t have the tools to cope with it once it comes along. Learning how to cope with any type of feeling is the foundation of emotional intelligence. As children learn through observation, they will refer to parents’ behaviour as a guide for their own. This means that parents in the first place should be the ones behaving correctly in moments of distress. Moreover, especially for younger children who have less opportunities to go out and witness real-life emotions and reactions, it is important to teach them about problem solving through TV shows and movies. Therefore, watching content that does not ban negative emotions but rather shows how to deal with them represents a further valuable input to your child's development of his/her emotional intelligence.
Sources
https://www.ihhp.com/meaning-of-emotional-intelligence/
https://www.verywellfamily.com/tips-for-raising-an-emotionally-intelligent-child-4157946