How do you react to stressful situations? I will be the first to admit that my anxiety is clearly linked to my inability to effectively manage my emotions during stress. I am famous for catastrophizing and overreacting. I grew up as the one known to freak out all the time. Now I know that I just needed to develop my emotional intelligence. This is something I will continue to work on throughout my life. I just hope that I can give my children the tools much earlier so that they don’t have to freak out as much as I do.
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) is the ability to recognize, direct, and positively express our emotions. It is a powerful skill that can help us better understand ourselves, overcome challenges, and build strong relationships with others. People with a high EQ can tolerate and constructively manage challenging feelings like sadness, anger, and fear. They also accept themselves and empathize with others. Fortunately, EQ is a skill that we can learn at any time in our lives, even if we were not taught it by our parents and teachers.
How Does Emotional Intelligence Impact Anxiety?
Children with higher EQ have less anxiety and depression, according to Wendy Baron of the Chopra Center. “When we’re stressed, anxious, or triggered, our brain and nervous system react immediately,” she explains. “Our amygdala sounds the alarm as our brain goes into a psychological state of flight, fight, or freeze. The ability to think, reason, and make rational decisions decreases. And our emotional grounded-ness goes right out the window. Add all this to a small child with big feelings, and you’ve got the recipe for an emotional firestorm–or as we parents know it, a tantrum of colossal proportions.”
EQ gives children the ability to respond rather than react. By learning to express emotions, listen actively, and consider multiple perspectives, your children will develop more positive, caring, respectful relationships with others; resolve conflicts more easily; and become less stressed and more optimistic. When children are able to effectively manage their emotions related to stress and anxiety, they can regulate their nervous system so they can stay happy and healthy.
What’s even more fascinating is that the ability to manage emotions in a healthy way can predict our quality of life, even more so than our IQ. An Aha! Parenting article discussed how a 2011 British study that followed individuals for fifty years (from birth to adulthood) concluded that success and happiness in life were strongly correlated to EQ. Emotional health leads to better mental and physical health, more academic success, and happier relationships.
What Can We Do To Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids?
As parents, we can take several steps to help our children develop stronger EQ. Remember that our children view us as role models. So, we can try as hard as possible to pass along these tools, but if we don’t practice EQ ourselves, then how can we expect our children to?
Here are 7 ways we can help our children develop their EQ:
- Be Available and Open-Minded. Although there are probably many topics you hope to never have to discuss with your children, letting them know they can talk to you about anything will greatly expand their EQ. If children feel ashamed or scared to talk about certain topics, they may build up repressed emotions that could come out later in negative behavior. It is better to be an open and honest book now to keep the chains of communication going between you and your children for a lifetime.
- Provide Tools To Express Emotions. Expressing emotions thoughtfully requires us to first be aware that we are having them and then to be able to communicate them effectively to ourselves and others. One of the best ways to help young children express their emotions is to teach them easy, appropriate vocabulary to describe their feelings. Suggest phrases like: “I’m feeling sad because,” or “When this happens, I feel…,” or “I don’t like when…”. You can also try asking them to draw a picture or sing a song about how they feel. There are many other creative ways to help our children learn how to express their emotions. If they are struggling to express themselves with you, consider seeking professional help. Please see this article for further information: https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/therapy/how-do-i-find-a-therapist-near-me/.
- Listen Actively. Listening helps diffuse intense feelings. When we listen deeply to another person, we let them know that we hear them and care about them. Active listening requires you to be fully present so that you can understand what the other person is thinking and feeling. You can foster active listening by using eye contact, acknowledging what they say, and asking questions that show you are interested, such as “What was that like for you?” or “How did that make you feel?”.
- Accept Their Emotions. Teach kids that they can’t choose their emotions, but they can choose what to do with those feelings. By accepting how they feel, you let them know they are safe and it is alright to feel that way. Even if you don’t agree with them, you can still let them know you understand how and why they feel that way. Just by acknowledging how they feel, you can guide them in finding a calm, productive solution.
- Explore Multiple Perspectives. Experiencing other people’s perspectives broadens our thinking, builds empathy and compassion, and reduces hurtful behavior toward others. To build this skill in your child, you can ask questions about characters while reading a story or watching a show together. Explore how different characters feel and why they may feel that way. Talk about conflicts the characters experienced. With older children, you can ask them about different views on current events, looking at all sides of an issue. As children are exposed to more perspectives, they become more flexible in their thinking, making them more accepting and tolerant of others and themselves.
- Let Them Know It’s Okay To Fail: Mistakes help us learn and grow. Children who never experience failure can end up feeling anxious and helpless down the road. Teach your children the importance of learning from mistakes, and that they don’t need to be good at everything or liked by everyone to be happy and successful in life.
- Love Them Unconditionally: Children need to feel that their parents will support and protect them. Giving unconditional love means having your children’s back whenever they feel threatened, unsafe, bullied, or vulnerable. Even if you don’t agree with their position or feeling, you can still give them unconditional love.
What are you doing to raise emotionally intelligent children?
I can certainly understand why someone more in touch with their emotions and the emotions of others would be better at coping with anxiety. Make a lot of sense. And good to know that it can be learned.
Yes, thank goodness it can be learned, even if it is challenging to do so. We are lucky that there are so many resources available now that were not around when we were kids.
Thank you so much for your excellent posts and most of all your approach. Most parenting websites, though well-intentioned, leave me feeling a failure and guilty. My daughters are 11and 4 and especially with the 11 year old I have made (and continue to make) a lot of mistakes and do things I am not proud of. I have also done things I am proud of and have a good relationship with my daughters, but I am ultimately a flawed human being. When I read articles about how things should be, how to do things, I come away feeling more of a failure, more guilty and more like my children have lost out. But your approach is like none other I have seen. I hesitate before clicking on articles as I don’t want to put myself through another round of sadness, but with yours, I never feel like this, I feel like we are all flawed, we are all imperfect, we are doing our best, and most importantly, it is never too late, we can all learn, that it is not just with small children that things can develop and change, and I come away feeling positive and able to put things into practice as a result. I have learned things from your articles, I don’t feel constantly beaten with a stick, I can see you are a wonderful mother, but you don’t rub it in and that you don’t think you’re perfect either or offer up some fairy tale idea of childhood, families and indeed life. It’s all possible. THANK YOU. xxx
Thank you so much for this amazing feedback. It makes all the hard work and late nights worth it!
Great post! You were able to articulate everything I’ve been feeling lately as we head towards the tantrum era in raising our son. He’s already been told by someone (not a direct family member) who happened to see him upset, not to cry like a baby. Beyond frustrating! Thank you for this!
I am so happy to hear how you related so much to this article. I hope that your son is able to communicate his emotions and not worry about crying.
Great tips on raising a child who is able to handle life’s ups and downs. I think this is especially important as your child enters their teens. They need even more ways to learn to express themselves without being judged.