SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS ARE DEFINED BY AWARENESS OF YOUR EMOTIONS

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 20:57

A person is guided by emotions not only often, but even more often than we think. Psychologist John Gottman and his colleagues followed families with four-year-olds right up to their teens. Gottman tried to understand how parents and children communicate in emotional situations, what mistakes they make and what problems they could avoid. As a result, the book "The Emotional Intelligence of the Child" appeared. Anastasia Chukovskaya read it carefully and prepared a synopsis of the author's main theses.

What is emotional intelligence?

The ultimate goal of parenting is not to raise an obedient and accommodating child. Most parents want more for their children: to bring up ethical and responsible people who contribute to society, have the strength to make their own choices, use their talents, love life, have friends, marry, and become good parents themselves.

Love alone is not enough for this. It turned out that the secret of parenting is how parents communicate with their children in emotional moments.

Success and happiness in all areas of life is determined by being aware of your emotions and the ability to cope with your feelings. This quality is called emotional intelligence. In terms of upbringing, it means that parents should understand the feelings of their children, be able to sympathize with them, soothe and guide them.

Emotional parenting is a sequence of actions that helps create emotional connections. When parents empathize with their children and help deal with negative emotions, they build mutual trust and affection.

Children behave according to family standards because they feel in their hearts that good behavior is expected of them. This does not mean a lack of discipline. Since there is an emotional connection between you, they listen to your words, they are interested in your opinion and they do not want to displease you. Thus, emotional parenting helps you motivate and manage your children.

How not to do

Among parents who are unable to develop emotional intelligence in their children, Gottman identified three types:

1. Rejecting people are those who do not attach importance to the negative emotions of children, ignore them, or consider them a trifle.
2. Disapprovers are those who criticize their children for showing negative emotions, can reprimand or even punish them.
3. Non-interfering - they accept the emotions of their children, empathize, but do not offer solutions and do not set limits on the behavior of their children.

In the case of rejecting parents, children learn that their feelings are wrong, inappropriate, unfounded. They may decide that they have some kind of congenital flaw that prevents them from feeling right. They may find it difficult to regulate their emotions. The same goes for children of disapproving parents.

If children have a non-interfering parent, then such children do not learn to regulate their emotions, they have problems concentrating, forming friendships, and they get along worse with other children.

The irony is that parents who reject or disapprove of their children's emotions usually do so out of the greatest concern. In an effort to protect them from emotional pain, they avoid or interrupt situations that may end in tears or outbursts of anger. In an effort to raise tough men, parents punish their sons for fear or sadness. But in the end, all these strategies backfire - children grow up unprepared for life's problems.

We have inherited a tradition of discounting children's feelings simply because children are younger, less rational, have little experience, and have less power than the adults around them. To understand our children, we need to show empathy, listen carefully, and be willing to see things from their perspective.

Children form an opinion about their personality from the words of their parents and, as a rule, believe what they say. If parents humiliate their children with jokes, nagging and excessive interference, the children stop trusting them. Without trust, there is no intimacy, which means that children challenge advice, and joint problem solving becomes impossible.

Don't criticize your child's personality traits. Instead of: "You are so careless, you always have a mess", say: "Your things are scattered all over the room."

One of the quickest ways to interfere with emotional parenting is to tell a child who is upset and angry how you would solve their problem. Children do not learn from such councils. Proposing a solution before empathy is shown is like putting in the framing of a house before a solid foundation is laid.

It is difficult to build a close and trusting relationship with your child if you do not have the opportunity to be with him alone. I do not recommend doing emotional education in the presence of other family members, friends, or strangers, as you can embarrass your child.

How to do it:

Parents were strongly encouraged to use positive forms of discipline: praise rather than criticize, reward rather than punish, encourage rather than hinder.

Fortunately, we have already gone far from the old "you will regret the rod, you will spoil the child" and now we know that the best tools for our children to become educated and emotionally healthy are kindness, warmth, optimism and patience.

Parents understand what emotion the child is experiencing, consider emotions an opportunity for rapprochement and learning, sympathetically listen to and acknowledge the child's feelings, help him find words to denote emotion, and study problem-solving strategies with the child.

Children whose parents consistently used emotional parenting had better health and higher academic performance. They had better relationships with friends, had fewer behavior problems, and were less prone to violence. They experienced fewer negative and more positive feelings. Children recovered faster from stress and had higher emotional intelligence.

Studies have shown that such parents are aware of their own emotions and feel well the emotions of their loved ones. In addition, they believe that all emotions such as sadness, anger and fear play an important role in our lives. Usually, children learn to cope with their feelings by watching their parents do it.

A child who sees his parents argue heatedly and then reconcile their differences peacefully learns valuable lessons in conflict resolution and endurance in relationships between loving people.

The child learns that when people experience grief together, the intimacy and bond between them is strengthened.

When a child is experiencing strong emotions, mutual exchange of simple observations works better than probing. You ask your daughter, “Why are you sad?”, But she may not know anything about it. She is still a child, she does not have many years of introspection behind her shoulders, therefore she does not have a ready answer. Therefore, it is better to voice what you see. “You seem a little tired today” or “I noticed that you frowned when I mentioned the concert” - and wait for an answer.

Putting emotion into words goes hand in hand with empathy. A parent sees his child in tears and says: "You must be very sad?" From that moment on, the child not only feels understood, but he also has a word to describe the strong feeling he is experiencing. According to research, labeling emotions has a calming effect on the nervous system and helps children recover faster from unpleasant incidents.

Improve your child's self-esteem by giving them choices and respecting their wishes

Books help children build vocabulary for talking about feelings and teach about the different ways people deal with anger, fear, and sadness. Well-chosen, age-appropriate books can give parents a reason to talk about traditionally difficult issues. Well-written children's books can help adults get in touch with their children's emotional world.

In the process of education, it will be useful for you to remember the following principles of Chaim Ginott:

1. All feelings are allowed, but not all behavior
2. The parent-child relationship is not a democracy; only the parent determines what behavior is acceptable.

Teenage years

The path of self-inquiry is not always smooth. Hormonal changes can cause uncontrolled and dramatic mood changes. At this age, children are very vulnerable and exposed to many dangers - drugs, violence and unsafe sex are just a few of them. But since this is a natural and inevitable part of human development, research continues.

Recognize that adolescence is a time when children are estranged from their parents. Parents need to understand that teenagers need privacy. Eavesdropping on conversations, reading a diary, or too many leading questions tell the child that you do not trust him and create a barrier to communication.

Don't ask questions like, "What's wrong with you?" Because they imply that you don't approve of his emotions.

If a teenager suddenly opens his heart to you, try not to show that you understood everything instantly. Your child is faced with a problem for the first time, he feels that his experience is unique, and if adults show that they are well aware of the motives for his behavior, the child feels offended

Show respect for your teens. I urge parents not to tease, criticize, or offend their children. Communicate your values concisely and without judgment. Nobody likes to listen to sermons, least of all your teenager.

Don't label it (lazy, greedy, sloppy, selfish). Speak in terms of concrete actions. For example, tell him how his actions have influenced you. (“You offend me a lot when you leave without washing the dishes, because I have to do your job”).

Provide your child with an appropriate environment. There is a saying: it takes a whole village to raise a child.

Take an interest in your child's friends and social life. Meet the parents of his friends. Invite his friends to stay overnight. Tune in to their conversations. Listen to their concerns. And acknowledge that in all the time you spend with your family, you have a million opportunities to both join your children and move away from them. You decide whether to meet them or to dismiss their feelings.