Development of emotional intelligence in children:
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to express, regulate, understand and manage one's own emotions.
And during the last decades, it has been considered that emotional intelligence is as important as the Intellectual Coefficient, since from it one can live harmoniously in society.
But, emotional intelligence is not an innate ability nor can it be learned overnight.
It is important to educate your children from their first months of life so that when they grow up they already have enough foundations to have a good EI. Parents are the main example and closest to the emotions that the child will have.
children are capable of capturing the moods of adults:
After various studies it has been proven that children are capable of capturing the moods of adults. In one of the studies it was found that babies are capable of experiencing a kind of empathic distress even before they are fully aware of its existence (Goleman, 1996) so starting early is a good idea.
If you are new to this, we are going to leave you with the most important points to start developing your children's emotional intelligence.
This Mayer and Salovey model talks about the variants to take into account when developing the IE and that can help you when you start.
- Emotional perception:
Teach your child to recognize emotions in himself and in others through different resources such as facial expression, voice or body expression.
- Emotional thought facilitation:
Help your child develop the ability to associate a sensation such as taste or smell with an emotion.
- Emotional understanding:
Teach the children in your house the ability to clarify problems and equate which emotions are similar.
- Reflexive regulation of emotions:
Helps the little ones to develop the ability to control emotions in oneself and in others, moderating negative emotions and increasing positive ones, without restricting or exaggerating the information they transmit.
