As adults, we probably don’t use a good portion of what we learned in school. But there is one particular kind of skill that we all need each and every day and that is the ability to deal with our emotions.
A high IQ means nothing without emotional maturity. In light of the changing pace of today’s world – with mothers dashing off to work and fathers working until all hours of the night – we often forget the important role we have to play in nurturing our children emotionally. What time we do have to spend with our children we often use to reinforce the importance of excelling academically or to try to teach manners. Also with the decreasing size of modern families, many children spend a lot of time playing by themselves at home and don’t have as many opportunities to play with other children under their parents’ supervision. For these reasons, schools in the West are increasingly trying to take on the responsibility of teaching students to be emotionally intelligent. Since our schools have yet to develop that focus, as parents, it’s our job to help our children develop emotional maturity.
What exactly is emotional maturity?
It involves a lot of elements: anger management, relationship building, the way we handle frustration and depression. Of course no one expects a toddler or even a preschooler to do all these things effectively all of the time, but by helping them learn to express their emotions and channel them effectively, you are giving them the basic tools they’ll need throughout life. After all, it may be understandable for a toddler to throw his toys against the wall when he’s mad that he has to go to bed, but when a businessman lobs his briefcase against the wall, it is not.
Why do young children react the way they do to their feelings? Basically they haven’t yet learned what is appropriate and what is not. For example, when a five year old bites his three year old sister because she’s getting too close to an electrical outlet, he’s responding to his feeling of being scared for his sister out of his knowledge that playing with electricity is wrong. Unfortunately, he’s doing it in a way that makes him look like the bad guy. You can take this example and expand upon it in uncountable ways: kids who don’t learn to handle their emotions effectively are the ones that end up as adults with troubled marital relationships, are always in hassles in the workplace, are viewed as difficult to work with and sometimes even violent. As parents, when our children are still moldable, we have to help them recognize their emotions, put them into words and help them act on them constructively.
Empathize
The first step to helping your child acknowledge and understand his feelings is to listen when he tries to talk. This is not always easy because angry, hurt or sad children don’t usually sit you down over a nice cup of tea to talk over how they are feeling – usually they just throw a tantrum or start whining incessantly. These tantrums or whining episodes can be extremely irritating for you as a parent, but you have to see past them to the emotion that is behind the reaction. Help your child identify that emotion and let him know that you understand it and have felt it too. So, for example, if your child is having a fit over another child playing with his toy, try to help him tell you why – he might be worried that the other child intends to take it home or that it will get broken. You can empathize with him by saying something like, “I know how you feel. When you were looking at my magazine, I was worried you’d rip it, but when you told me you’d be careful, I felt better.” Once you understand his fear, you can reassure him about the expected course of events.
Label those feelings!
Sometimes kids don’t know how to describe the way they are feeling because they are reacting to something in the big picture. For example, if you and your spouse have a fight in front of your child, it might cause him anxiety for days, making him take out his feelings in aggressive ways without really knowing the reason he’s acting the way he is. Try to help him find the words for his feelings so that they’ll be more easily dealt with. Try saying, “Do you feel worried when your dad and I have an argument?” If he responds positively, reassure him that grownups have arguments just like kids do and when parents argue it doesn’t mean that they love their children any less.
It’s only natural
Don’t ridicule your child’s feelings. For him they are very real and important. So if he’s scared on the first day of school for example, don’t say, “Don’t be silly.” Instead, try, “I know it’s scary to go somewhere for the first time, but remember last year when you went to nursery? You were scared at first but then you got to know everyone and started to like it and that scared feeling went away.” If you make fun of his feelings, he’ll try to repress them rather than dealing with them.
Give him options
To a preschooler it seems only natural to react violently when things aren’t going his way. For example, when two children are playing together and one of them wants to pretend that the army men are racetrack drivers while the other one wants to play tanks and war, one of them may get fed up with the other and take a swipe. Help your child find alternative ways to deal with his emotions and manage situations. Start with encouraging him to express the emotion: “I get mad when you won’t play the game I want to play.” Then ask him for other ways he can manage the situation. If he doesn’t have any ideas, help him by making suggestions like: “Maybe you can play your friend’s way for 15 minutes and then it will be your turn to play the way you want.”
Recognizing anger
When your child is angry ask him how it’s making him feel physically – he may say that it makes his tummy hurt or that he feels his mouth tighten up. Help him concentrate on relaxing those muscles by taking a few deep breaths or counting to 10 before reacting to a situation. That extra time often makes the difference between a violent reaction and a healthy reaction.
Control yourself
There’s no way around it: kids learn by watching. If you and your spouse are not emotionally mature in the way you deal with problems, your children will probably grow up the same way. Try not to overreact but don’t cover up your emotions either. Also when dealing with your child, direct your criticism at the behavior that you don’t like, not at the child. It’s okay to say, “I don’t like the way you behaved today,” but try not to say, “You make me crazy.”
Encourage Emotional Intelligence!
1 Help your child make a book about himself, emphasizing all the things that make him special. Include his accomplishments (like being able to do cartwheels), his preferences (favorite foods, books, colors) and a self-portrait.
2 When you are reading books or watching TV, ask your child how different characters feel. Help him identify the different emotions going on.
3 Talk over hypothetical situations to help your child learn appropriate ways to deal with them: What would you do if you broke another child’s toy? What would you do if you saw another kid steal something?
4 Teach responsibility by letting him take care of a plant. Choose something that is likely to succeed and give him instructions so he’ll know exactly what is expected of him – lentils on a damp paper towel will sprout into a nice little garden in no time, for example.
5 Encourage him to help around the house and express your appreciation when he does what is expected of him. Even little kids can help tidy up.
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