The Importance Of Emotional Intelligence In Early Childhood
Emotional intelligence really does incorporate all the things that our children need . These skills are going to be a great foundation for our children and allow them a solid foundation to grow upon.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to regulate one’s own emotions along with other people’s emotions.
This is not something where we’re getting into our feelings and justifying poor action based on negative feelings.
It’s the exact opposite actually.
We are not trying to justify a negative reaction because someone has a negative emotion. The benefit is the ability to apply different techniques that are going to be combined together in order to appropriately react to external stimuli.
Emotional Intelligence is not just a single task or technique. It is a group of principles that when combined or performed separately increase the likelihood that a child or person in general will be able to handle their own successes and difficulties as well as others.
When dealing with emotional intelligence these are its principles:
Children and students will learn self regulation and this will make a huge difference in a child’s life.
Self-awareness is a huge one as well. That’s another big step in their emotional intelligence. It’s going to be the question of “who am I?”, “what do I want to do?” and “how am I going to present myself to the world?”
The next one is empathy. Can they sympathize with the emotions of other people? Yet at the same time, positively respond to something that someone else is going through.
Another one is going to be motivation. Motivation seems like a general concept, but it really is a huge deal because when you break down motivation, you realize that it’s just the beginning. Motivation is something that leads and turns into discipline which is the real prize.
The last one is social skills. This is something that’s going to get your child to the next level because we are social creatures. We want to make sure that our children are able to appropriately socialize with other kids, their peers and with adults.
Now let’s focus on the principles that encompass emotional intelligence.
For more information about topics in child development, check out our article on How To Teach Your Child To Read
1. Social Skills
As it was said before, Emotional intelligence is just a basic terminology that pulls together many different skills and one of the big ones is social skills.
How does social skills play a role in a child’s everyday life? As an Educator, I see how social skills help students every day. So many times we leave it up to their normal, god-given ability to socialize and collaborate based upon their personality.
“Oh, my child is just shy” or “Oh, they’re very outspoken”. A lot of times it is not good enough, just to allow your child to just go with the flow because they could be missing an opportunity to get what they need through better social skills.
If they were given basic social skills techniques they could have been able to open up many different doors to opportunities that would allow them to succeed in whatever endeavor they chose. Whether it be in school, at the park with friends or with parents and grandparents whatever the case may be, social skills are a huge part of a child’s success and enjoyment.
The importance of emotional intelligence in early childhood starts withs social skills and communication. Communication is extremely important because communication is not necessarily a god-given gift. Proper communication skills are learned, not something that a child is born with.
All parents and teachers need to sit down with their children and explain the importance of clear communication. It is important for a child to understand that when you appropriately communicate to other people, you’re going to increase the chances of getting what you want or help other people get what they want.
Another important part of communication and social skills is how to make friends. Now, this is something that once again, we just leave it up to the child to just figure it out on their own. Unfortunately, many times children aren’t prepared and given the techniques to help them make friends. This leads them to be unsuccessful due to the fear that comes with uncertainty.
Some kids are better than others at making friends but with some basic techniques all kids will have a better chance of initiating relationships in a positive manner.
A great way to start is giving them ways to initiate a positive interaction with someone new. Giving them appropriate and practiced statements to start a conversation with another child gives them the confidence at the playground or at school to ask someone to play which will increase their enjoyment.
Here are some ways they can initiate a conversation:
- Saying “Hello” and asking to play
- Pay a compliment to someone new.
- Introduce yourself
- Offer help
- Ask for an opinion.
Another aspect that is important with social skills is to teach our children that 99% of the failed interactions have nothing to do with them.
It is very important for children to understand that when an interaction fails such as a child asking to play with someone else and being told no or being rejected when they are asking for something that they want it many times is something that the rejector is going through not the asker.
The circumstances in which they are saying no has nothing to do with the person asking.
So many times a child will internalize the rejection and think it is something that they did but the majority of the time it has nothing to do with them.
There are external factors such as someone having a bad day, an emotional event that happened right before the child asking or the other child is experimenting with their own boundaries and socialization that cause them to say no.
Once a child understands this, they’re able to have persistence and to continue their resolve to make new friends, join a group or ask for what they want regardless of other people’s situations.
This gives the parent an opportunity to also talk about self-reflection and to see if a negative result is actually from a child actions.
As we said before, most of the time it is something external but we must take this opportunity for them to reflect on why someone says no or rejects their offer to see if there is something that can be improved. If a child is asking impolitely or if the timing of the request was not at the best time then this is something that the child can improve on the next time they communicate for something they want.
There are many more aspects to social skills but when a child has mastered their communication skills as well as developed a habit of consistency and persistence when asking to join a group, play a game, making a new friend or asking for what they want they will find that more often than not they will be happy in social settings.
2. Motivation
When a child is motivated the sky’s the limit. Unfortunately motivation is short-lived but when taught appropriately motivation turns into discipline and when discipline is achieved then a child is setting themselves up for a lifetime of success and achievement.
A child must be taught at an age-appropriate level that when having discipline and doing hard things that they don’t want to do will build a pattern that will ultimately lead to small wins that accumulate into long term greatness.
Some children are born with intrinsic motivation that astounds even the most disciplined adult but most of the time the best way to build a child’s motivation and in turn their discipline is to start extrinsically. When you reward a child extrinsically you are giving them tangible rewards.
Tangible rewards or something a child can get outside of themselves such as compliments from their family, rewards such as ice cream or a favorite trinket. It can also be time spent at a favorite place or with a favorite person. Regardless of what the reward is, it must be something that they have earned because of an action that is worthy of being positively reinforced.
Once a child has been positively reinforced for actions that set them on a path for success they will start realizing and recognizing a pattern. Once this pattern is established the child will start seeing themselves as a good reader, a good student, good at math, a great soccer player or even better… a great person in general.
When this occurs the child has set themselves up for a lifetime of success because now the extrinsic reward is no longer as important because they see themselves intrinsically as that type of person. This allows a child sees themselves as a good student, a good athlete or again a good person then the motivation is internal and they will start setting goals for themselves based on that intrinsic identification.
When this shift occurs from extrinsic rewards to intrinsic motivation and discipline within a child’s psyche the child has a much greater chance of succeeding and will be on the path to greatness.
Another crucial ideology for a child to understand is the importance of persistence.
When talking to your child about emotional intelligence in regards to motivation you must be very careful not to fully reward only successful outcomes.
A child’s true strength is reinforced when parents reward effort just as much as the successful outcome.
This will teach the child that it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about learning and any outcome can be seen as beneficial when the main goal is to learn.
When learning is the real reward then a child will see failure, losing or things not going their way not as a bad thing but one step closer to getting better at or learning the task at hand.
When this is accomplished the child will be able to take the long-term approach and continue on the learning process through both the failures and the successes because in the long run the child will see that persistence and the ability to consistently try and try again will be far more beneficial than an easy win.
Many times if a child is taught that the win Is the highest prize it is not in their best interest.
When things get tough and winning is not an easy endeavor many children do not have the ability of persistence. They will quit long before they have acquired the skills in order for them to win in the future.
3. Self-Awareness
So many times we expect our children to know what they want to be when they grow up.
Although, so often we have not spent any time developing their self-awareness as well as their ability to know what is best for them and how to develop it.
One of the best ways to do this is just give your child as many opportunities to explore the things that they are curious about and let them see if it is something that they would like to continue or if it wasn’t everything they thought it would be.
I don’t recommend allowing your child to quit the endeavor or the activity that they have signed up for early. If they find that it is not what they wanted or they did not like it as much as they thought they would, it is important to also take the opportunity to show them that quitting before they have given the activity an adequate amount of time will only diminish the experience as they could be quitting before they have truly experienced what this activity had to offer.
It is also a good time to talk with your child about how quitting affects the other team members or people involved in the activity.
One of the most powerful gifts that a child can give to themselves and a parent can cultivate is a clear and precise direction they can put their energy into.
The earlier that a child can identify the path that they want to follow in life the easier it will be for them to develop the passion that in turn leads to persistence when going after a goal that they have set for themselves.
This can only occur when a child has been given the opportunity to cultivate their own self-awareness.
4. Self-Regulation
Emotions are a natural response to stimulus and situations that occur in everyday life. How a child reacts to these emotions are of the utmost importance to their ability to be successful.
The very first thing that they must be able to do is to recognize their emotions.
When a child is able to recognize what it feels like to be mad, sad, frustrated, excited or happy and how certain situations can affect how they feel is the first step to being able to respond appropriately when these emotions occur.
Once they’re able to understand how emotions make them feel they can then in turn. with the help of their parents and teachers, develop strategies on how to appropriately respond to either the negative or positive emotion.
It is crucial as a parent or teacher to help your students or children understand that many times they cannot control how they feel in a situation but they can control how they react to the situation.
When they have a full understanding that no one can make them react to a situation but them that gives the child the power to handle their emotions and the situation that best fits their needs.
You can also take it a step further and teach them skills such as changing the narrative of the situation to make it easier to respond in a positive manner.
An example of this would be if someone was unkind to them in a conversation rather than making the normal conclusion that that person is mean or not a good friend they could change the narrative.
They could change their interpretation of the experience to “maybe the person that was being unkind was having a bad day”, “the person just got in trouble from their parents and was not handling it well” or “they must not have gotten enough sleep the night before and is more cranky than usual.”
When a child is able to change the narrative it makes it easier on them to react to negative interactions. This teaches them that no one can make them feel in a certain way because they have a choice about how they react to each situation.
These techniques allow the child to understand that they have a choice whether a situation makes them mad or sad, happy or excited because they are in control of their own narrative and how they react to the environment around them.
Emotional self-regulation is something that is very difficult to accomplish without a multitude of practice and opportunities to see how this can be a benefit to them in real time. A child must practice this and the parent must take opportunities to point out ways and techniques for them to use self-regulation as a tool.
The more a child practices this and uses emotional self-regulation to their benefit the better they will be able to bend reality in order for it to benefit them and in turn create opportunities for future successes.
5. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to see and feel what it would be like in the perspective of another person.
It is also the ability to relate to other people and have compassion for how others are feeling.
Many times empathy is best learned through modeling which is seeing other people show compassion and taking the time to understand what someone else is feeling and why they are feeling that way.
This can be hard because a child in their own learning development is going through learning processes that make themselves the dominant individual in their own world.
They must be given time to work on their own self-awareness and the ability to fulfill their own needs for themselves but when it is age appropriate showing them how empathy benefits both them and those around them is an important part of their own growth.
Take the time to talk to your child about how others are feeling and interpreting the same situation.
Let them know that some people see things differently because of their own experiences and it is important to take the time to see things in a different perspective which benefits your child as well as others.
6. How It All Works Together
When a child is able to show empathy to others they’re not only showing compassion for others they are using high level thinking skills that will help them make important decisions for themselves in the future.
In order for a child to be successful they have to be able to communicate effectively and to be able to cooperate with others in order for them to fulfill their own needs and the needs of others.
Children also need the ability to self-motivate and learn the importance of persistence which will allow them the longevity that is necessary to create long-term success.
Self-awareness and self-regulation both allow the child to look inward which gives them the strength to handle what many times is outside of their control.
When a child’s first response is to try to understand where another person is coming from as well as the other principles that I’ve mentioned above, that is a true sign that they see emotional intelligence as a priority and an even better sign that the parents have set their children up for a lifetime of happiness and success.
For more information on how to improve Emotional Intelligence take a look at the Harvard article: How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence
