I loved this post so much by Meghan Owenz from parent.co
that we had to share it! I have studied emotional intelligence for the
last five years and I believe as parents it is such an important component of
parenting, to help our children understand emotional intelligence and how it
has such a large impact on their life.
When emotions run high, people do and say things they
normally would not. When you’re a young child, this is what you do all the
time.
Emotional self-regulation, a large component of emotional
intelligence, is the ability to manage one’s experience and expression of
emotions. With practice, children improve their capacity for emotional
self-regulation. By age four, most children start to use strategies to
eliminate disturbing external stimuli. In other words, they cover their eyes
when they’re scared and plug their ears when they hear a loud noise.
It’s not until age 10 that children consistently use more
complex strategies for emotional self-regulation. These strategies can be
broken down into two simplistic categories: those that attempt to solve the
problem and those that attempt to tolerate the emotion.
When a child can make a change to address a problem, they
engage in problem-focused coping by identifying the trouble and making a plan
for dealing with it. When they deem the problem unsolvable, they engage in
emotion-focused coping by working to tolerate and control distress.
Emotional intelligence
All of these strategies are a part of emotional
intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses awareness, understanding, and
the ability to express and manage one’s emotions.
While the world has been focused on academic achievement in
childhood, emotional self-regulation has been largely ignored. This is a poor
strategy, given that research suggests emotional intelligence is twice as strong a predictor as
IQ of later success.
Self-control, one piece of emotional intelligence, is
particularly important in predicting achievement in children. Children who are
able to inhibit impulses (often driven by emotions) and avoid distractions are
able to engage in more prosocial behaviors and accomplish their goals.
A particularly powerful study tested school-aged children on
self-control and conducted follow-up studies on those children in their 30s. The study demonstrated that self-control
predicted success better than IQ, socioeconomic status, and family environment.
Those children high in self-control were also
healthier, made more money, and were less likely to have criminal records or
trouble with alcohol.
Feelings serve a purpose
The first piece of emotional intelligence is awareness and
understanding of emotions. We have to understand and accept before we can
control and express our emotions. Emotions are not an inconvenience, but rather
a piece of human evolution that serves a purpose. The discrete theory of emotions suggests that each
of our primary emotions have evolved to serve distinct purposes and motivate
our behavior.
Sadness is an emotion uniquely capable of slowing us down,
both in thought and motor activity. This can allow us the opportunity to
reflect on the source of our emotional upset and take a closer look at the
antecedents of it.
In contrast, anger speeds us up, mobilizing intense energy
and sending blood to our extremities. While evolutionary, this geared us up for
a fight; in modern times, it allows the sustained energy for a fight of a
different nature. Anger cues us that our rights have been violated and helps us
mobilize to protect against future threats.
Our emotions are to be respected and reflected upon. This
includes our children’s intense emotions at seemingly non-intense situations.
My daughter experiences intense anger when she is not able to do something she
had previously accomplished, such as buckling her car seat independently.
In their recent policy statement, the American Academy of
Pediatrics advised parents not use technology as a way to calm or pacify
negative emotions in their child. Specifically they expressed “concern that
using media as strategy to calm could lead to problems with limit setting or
the inability of children to develop their own emotion regulation.”
Basically, children need the experience of feeling these
emotions and practice tolerating them to develop self-control and emotional
intelligence.
Increasing your child’s emotional
intelligence
Because emotional intelligence appears to be such a strong
predictor of success, researchers have looked at how caregivers can encourage
its development. Specifically, John Gottman observed how parents respond to
their children’s emotions in an effort to understand how emotional intelligence
develops. He found that parents respond to children’s emotions one of four
possible ways:
Dismissing parents see children’s emotions as
unimportant and attempt to eliminate them quickly, often through the use of
distraction.
Disapproving parents see
negative emotions as something to be squashed, usually through punishment.
Laissez-faire parents accept all
emotions from child, but fail to help the child solve problems or put limits on
appropriate behaviors.
Emotion coaching parents value
negative emotions, are not impatient with a child’s expression of them, and use
emotional experience as an opportunity for bonding by offering guidance through
labeling emotions and problem-solving the issue at hand.
Gottman’s research shows children of parents who emotion
coach are physically healthier, do better in school, and get along better with
friends. Emotion coaching parents followed five basic steps to help their
children with emotions. Sometimes this can take a great deal of time. Gottman
found that emotion coaching parents only followed all five steps 20-25 percent
of the time, suggesting there is no need for guilt as no parent can complete
this process all the time. The five steps are:
Step 1: Be aware of your child’s
emotions.
Parents who emotion coach are aware of their own feelings
and sensitive to the emotions present in their children. They do not require
their child to amp up their emotional expression for the feelings to be
acknowledged.
Step 2: See emotions as an
opportunity for connection and teaching.
Children’s emotions are not an inconvenience or a challenge.
They are an opportunity to connect with your child and coach them through a
challenging feeling.
Step 3: Listen and validate the
feelings.
Give your child your full attention while you listen to
their emotional expression. Reflect back what you hear, thus telling your child
you understand what they’re seeing and experiencing.
Step 4: Label their emotions.
After you have fully listened, help your child develop an
awareness of and vocabulary for their emotional expression.
Step 5: Help your child
problem-solve with limits.
All emotions are acceptable but all behaviors are not. Help
your child cope with his or her emotions by developing problem-solving skills.
Limit the expression to appropriate behaviors. This involves helping your child
set goals and generating solutions to reach those goals.
Sometimes the steps of emotion coaching may go relatively
quickly. Other times, these steps may take a great deal of time. Patience will
be key. If the problem is big, all five steps don’t have to be completed in one
interaction.
Nurture yourself the way you would
your child
In this time when emotions are running high, nurture
yourself the way you would your child. Allow yourself to first feel the
feelings, as all feelings serve a purpose. If you’re feeling sadness, you may
need some time for reflection. If you’re feeling anger, you may want to involve
yourself in ways to protect your rights and interests in the future.
Walking
through the steps of emotion coaching for yourself, when you’re ready to do so,
is a first step in allowing yourself to be an emotionally intelligent being who
is successfully meets your goals. After you have an understanding of your own
feelings and goals, you can begin the process of emotion-coaching for your
child.
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