What Is Emotional Intelligence And How To Develop It

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Mom tell me what I'm going through and I will know it

From the very birth, the child is immersed in the world of interesting impressions and various emotions. However, just like the need for food, safety, warmth cannot be satisfied by him on his own, so the mood and feelings of the child cannot be independently understood and recognized by him. The kid turns out to be completely dependent on the mother, not only in terms of physiological care, but also in terms of emotional state. Whether his parents name his experiences, and how exactly they call them, depends on his ability to get acquainted with these experiences and appropriate them to himself.

“Masha is in a good mood today. Masha smiles, Masha is happy,”says a mother who loves her daughter. “Misha is crying. Misha wants to eat. Now mom will feed Misha, and he will smile again,”says another loving mother.

These, at first glance, ordinary phrases can be called magic, because it is through them that the child learns to learn about his own emotional world.

What is emotional intelligence?

A mother who broadcasts (names) the child his experiences and moods, develops in him the ability to recognize his emotions and experiences and teaches him to manage them, that is, develops the emotional intelligence of her child.

A mother who does not name and does not reflect the child's experiences, considering it a waste of time or unnecessary chatter, blocks the path to the development of the child's ability to understand his emotions and mood. In other words, such a mom inhibits the development of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intellect Is the ability of a person to recognize and understand his own emotions and moods, the ability to manage them, as well as the ability to understand the emotions, moods and desires of other people and relate them to their own. There are 4 components of emotional intelligence:

1. Perception of emotions.
2. Using emotions to stimulate thinking.
3. Understanding emotions.
4. Emotion management.

Thus, it is with the help of the parents that the child in childhood will be able to begin to recognize and name his own emotions, to understand the reasons why they arise, to develop ways or means for their expression or transformation, that is, to control them.

Emotional intelligence of parents

It would seem that everything is clear and nothing complicated, but situations often happen in life that mothers regret during consultations with a psychologist:

“I constantly scold my child,” says the mother. “How does this happen?” I ask.

“When my child doesn’t listen to me or behaves badly, I become like a spring that is compressed, compressed, compressed … After he once again misbehaves, this spring inside me cannot withstand and bursts. At such moments, I can no longer control my emotions. I scream and scold my child. And he shouts back (or hides under the bed, or silently looks at me - author's note). And so it is constantly. How to break out of this vicious circle?"

Why is this happening? In most cases, because the mother herself is deficient in emotional intelligence. She was not taught in childhood to understand and talk about her experiences and relate these experiences to the feelings of others. Accordingly, she hardly manages to identify, to make out what she feels when the protest, disobedience of the child begins. And it is difficult for her to name her emotions for a child, and it is impossible to understand his resistance or aggression.

Which exit? Develop the emotional intelligence of both yours and your child at the same time.

Ways to develop emotional intelligence

There are several ways to develop emotional intelligence in a child:

1. To use words to describe the emotions that the child is experiencing - "You are sad now", "You are upset", "Look - Julia is happy, Seryozha is angry, Katya is delighted."

2. Name your own emotions that mom is experiencing: "I am very tired now", "I am worried", "I am very interested."

3. Give feedback. Ask the child how he reacts to your attitude and experience, talk about his own emotional reaction to his experiences.

4. Create a dictionary of emotions for the child and for the mother and write down the names of all your new experiences. We experience many different emotions every day. It depends on them whether the day is simply boring or emotionally diverse. But a whole life is made up of such days.

Here are the first words that you can write down in your dictionary of emotions: gratitude, cheerfulness, helplessness, powerlessness, inspiration, guilt, outrage, excitement, delight, anger, pride, sadness, pity, envy, interest, confusion, anger, amazement, interest., fright, curiosity, hope, tension, alertness, tenderness, resentment, discouragement, mischief, caution, numbness, sadness, tearfulness, depression, suspicion, joy, irritation, boredom, laughter, embarrassment, confusion, calmness, fear, shame, anxiety, thrill, enthusiasm, pleasure, despondency, fatigue, euphoria, rage.

I wish you to experience all the beauty of life with a high level of emotional intelligence!