Children's emotions are not an inconvenience or a challenge ... They are an opportunity to connect with children and educate them. When emotions are more intense, people tend to do things that they normally don't do, and children do the same. Although when they are too young, this can happen to them much of the day because their emotions are quite intense all the time.
Emotional self-regulation is a large component of emotional intelligence and is the ability to manage the experience and expression of emotions. With practice, children improve their capacity for emotional self-regulation. At four years old, most children begin to use strategies to eliminate disturbing external stimuli. In other words, they cover their eyes when they are afraid and cover their ears when they hear a loud noise.
It will not be until age 10 that children consistently use more complex strategies for emotional self-regulation. These strategies can be divided into two simple categories: those that try to solve the problem and those that try to tolerate the emotion. When a child is able to make changes to address problems they will be getting involved to deal with the problem they have previously identified. When it is considered that the problem cannot be solved, then it will be necessary to work on emotions than learn to tolerate them and control distress.
These are emotional intelligence strategies, encompassing awareness, understanding, and the ability to express and manage emotions. While the world focuses on success and competition, emotional education (and self-regulation) has been sidelined.
Self-control, a piece of emotional intelligence, is particularly important in predicting children's achievement and future success. Children who are able to inhibit impulses (often driven by emotions) and avoid distractions are able to engage in more prosocial behaviors and achieve their goals ... As long as emotions do not repress them, but rather understand them and know how to manage them.
All feelings have 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 them. Emotions are not an inconvenience, but rather a piece of human evolution that serves a purpose. Each of our primary emotions have evolved to serve different purposes and motivate our behavior.
Children who grow up being emotionally aware will be healthier, do better in school, and get along better with friends. Sadness is a unique emotion capable of making us go backwards, both in thought and in motor activity. This can allow us the opportunity to reflect on the source of our emotional distress and take a closer look at the background so that we can work on an emotional solution.
In contrast, Anger accelerates us, mobilizing intense energy and sending blood to our extremities. Although evolutionary, this set us up for a fight. In modern times, it allows sustained energy for a fight of a different nature than what nature evolutionarily prepared for us. Anger tells us that our rights have been violated and helps us mobilize to protect ourselves from future threats.
Our emotions must be respected and reflected. This includes the intense emotions of our children in seemingly non-intense situations. The American Academy of Pediatrics advised parents not to use technology as a way to calm or pacify negative emotions in children. Specifically, they expressed concern that media use was a calming strategy and that doing so could lead to problems with setting limits or the inability of children to develop their own emotional regulation. Children need to feel all their emotions and learn to tolerate them to promote good self-control and emotional intelligence.
How parents respond to their children's emotions
Emotional intelligence seems to be the predictor of people's success, which is why it is so important to work on it since children are very young (with parents being the first beneficiaries since in order to teach children emotional intelligence, they will first be the ones who should understand and manage their own emotions). The doctor. John gottman studied how parents respond to the emotions of their children, since this is essential for the development (or not) of emotional intelligence in children. John Gottman found that parents respond to children's emotions in four different ways. The 4 ways are as follows:
- Try to eliminate emotions. When parents try to downplay their children's emotions through distractions, they are telling their children that their emotions are unimportant.
- Disapprove of emotions. Disapproval of negative emotions is often done through punishment and the child may feel misunderstood and frustrated.
- Parents who accept emotions but do not help them. Parents who accept their children's emotions but do not help them solve problems, guide them, or limit inappropriate behavior.
- Parents who do work on their children's emotions. Working on children's emotions shows how parents value the negative emotions of their children, but are not impatient in expressing them. They use the emotional experience as a learning opportunity for all, to strengthen the union and offer a good orientation in the emotions, naming them and looking for a conflict resolution appropriate to the problem in question.
All of this helps us understand how parents who do work on their children's emotions will be raising healthier and better balanced children both emotionally and cognitively.. Parents who care about working well on their children's emotions will not have feelings of guilt since they will know that they are doing everything possible so that their children grow emotionally stable and thus, reach success.