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How We Can Help Kids Develop Emotional Intelligence

By January 19, 2022Smiley Halves

To help increase our child’s emotional awareness we can encourage open and candid conversations. Emotional coaching can help children deal with the difficult emotions they feel. It’s important to welcome children’s thoughts and concerns, and giving them a space to be vulnerable without judgment building the foundations of their emotional literacy.

By simply asking “why?” is an effective tool of communicating with your child. It allows them the  opportunity to understand why they are reacting in a certain way before receiving your observations. This is a practice that strengthens their social skills, emotional intelligence skills as well as emotional awareness. Encouraging them to be aware and take thoughts and feelings of others into consideration helps the learning of self-control. Your child’s ability to distinguish different emotions, will help them develop mindfulness and a better understanding of people’s emotions.

It is also beneficial to take time to acknowledge your child’s successes and uplift them in times of failure. Children learn to communicate by watching us as parents and mimicking the way you communicate with another people. Its important to emphasize your listening and not over responding to situations. Take time to pause for a brief moment giving your children the center stage. This approach stimulates social emotional learning and a growth mindset. Emotional skills are hard to learn so take time and have patience.

Encourage your children to be curious as this can also help develop your children’s emotional intelligence. Taking time to observe and be sensitive in many different environments can enhance the ability for your children to learn how to adapt in unpredictable situations. Take the time to do storytelling, writing or acting as this type of play can help with your child’s experience of life outside of their own shoes.

The most effective way to develop emotional intelligence is to have them constantly question things so give them the space and time to explore their environments and be captivated by even the simplest of things.

MIX IT. MATCH IT. SPIN IT.