What is emotional intelligence and why is it important to develop it from childhood

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Victoria Shimanskaya, author of a book on the development of emotional intelligence in children, talks about the role EQ plays in a person's life and how to develop it with the help of special exercises.

We want ourselves and our children to be successful and happy. But we often forget that it is impossible to put an equal sign between these concepts. You can be successful but still feel unhappy all the time. And you can constantly experience difficulties in your studies or career, but treat them not as a tragedy, but as a step forward.

Why are emotions so important?

Life is 10% of what happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it.

Charles Swindall writer

The modern world is full of stressful situations that are difficult to deal with even for adults, let alone children. They do not understand and do not know what emotions they experience at one time or another, how to control them, therefore they have a distorted idea of what is happening. This leads to neuroses, apathy and other depressive conditions.

Excessive requirements of teachers, parental self-realization through a child, instilling in a small personality the importance of victory and superiority (many want to be parents of winners) - all this is too heavy a burden for fragile children's shoulders. The heavier this burden, the more important it is to deal with the feelings and experiences of the child.

Already in adulthood, we see that people who cannot control their emotions have trouble in all areas of life, including in their careers.

When a person is seized with negative emotions and cannot objectively assess their feelings, desires and capabilities, a destructive effect is provided.

Relations with others deteriorate, a person closes in on himself, loses faith in himself, his strength or his professionalism, becomes irritable, becomes even more confused in his feelings. And then the question arises: "What level of emotional intelligence does he have?"

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is responsible for recognizing and correctly interpreting emotions. It is he who endows a person with psychological flexibility and the ability to effectively interact with the outside world.

That is why the concept of "emotional intelligence" was first voiced in relation to building a career and self-realization. However, psychologists immediately grasped the infantile subtext in this, because the fundamental development of the personality occurs precisely in childhood.

For a child, the development of EQ is an opportunity to create a streamlined and understandable perception system that will allow you to effectively interact with people around you, correctly perceive criticism, recognize the feelings of adults and peers and adequately respond to them.

Aggression, apathy, poor sleep, distraction, inability to establish contacts with peers and other disturbing manifestations in the child's behavior are obvious signals that indicate the need to develop emotional intelligence.

How to develop emotional intelligence from childhood?

The most important thing in the life of any child is parental love. Love your child, show him tenderness and care. Tactile communication between mother and child does not lose its importance for children over infancy.

Love allows every person to feel secure and confident. This is a solid foundation for the development of a successful personality.

It is also very important to create the right associations with different emotions. Use a real-life example to show your child what joy is. Could it be the smell of cake? Maybe a bell ringing? And what about friendship? Do you associate friendship with hugs? If not, then what does it look like in your imagination?

Create a colorful and vibrant world around your child, in which every feeling and sensation has its own color, aroma and taste. So you will not only open the doors to the world of emotions for the child, but also get closer to him, further strengthen the trust between you.

A similar method works when reading fairy tales. Do not just read, but play fairy tales, tell children magic stories through a game or a small performance. Play a scene in front of them, use tactile sensations, aromatic oils, appropriate intonation - this will allow the child to feel the whole gamut of sincere emotions that a magical story evokes.

Each of these methods is well described in our book Monsique. What are emotions and how to be friends with them”. Ours, because we created it together with my son Gleb, based on our own experience. It can be safely called a detailed guide for parents, where one of the most effective methods for developing EQ is shown through interaction with the fairytale heroes Monsics. Each of them represents a specific emotion and has skills to help children understand these emotions and cope with them with different difficulties. Monsiks are kind fairy-tale creatures, and a fairy tale is best perceived by a child.

Working on emotional intelligence in childhood is the key to successful development and well-being in the future.

Most likely, such a child, as an adult, will be able to avoid most of the psychological problems that modern society confronts us today.

Children are more receptive to everything new, their psyche is similar to plasticine - flexible and artless. But what will be molded from this plasticine often depends only on adults. So let's start with ourselves.

Simple Exercises to Develop EQ

The EQ development methodology is simple and straightforward, but it requires care and regular implementation. Here are the simplest and most effective exercises.

Mindfulness Exercises

Emotional Diary

To learn to be aware of yourself here and now, write down the emotion you are experiencing at the moment every three hours. At the end of the day, highlight the prevailing emotion and think about what to work on.

In a couple of weeks, you will be able to feel yourself in real time without any difficulties.

This exercise will be made more effective by a kind of checking - an analysis of the physical state when experiencing a certain emotion. This practice is also good for improving health.

Stop

How often are our actions accompanied by rash inertia? We do not think about what we are doing, but simply perform some habitual, regular manipulation. Exercise "Stop!" is to abruptly interrupt any action in order to get rid of inertia and allow yourself to think about the situation. This is the only way to feel yourself here and now, to start controlling your reality.

Self-Esteem Exercises

What a luck

Teach yourself to think positively, reacting even to unpleasant events with the phrase: “What luck!”. Such a reaction will come as a surprise to others, but this fact will also benefit you, because then you will find even more advantages in the situation. As an enhancement of the effect, you can use the phrase: "It's so great, because …". Why? Think about it.

Sell your flaw

An effective technique that allows you to interpret even the negative aspects of the personality in a positive way. Tell the audience about your flaw in other words, give it a different color. For example, can caution be considered cowardice and courage foolhardy? But it all depends on which side you look at. The synthon approach is based on a positive approach to development. He says: you have no flaws, you have features.

You need to develop your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

With this approach, you can sell any of your flaws. For example, sell uncertainty. Tell the audience honestly and truthfully how, having this quality, before taking an important step, you consider all options for events, look closely at various solutions and only after that take the most beneficial step for you.

Exercises to develop motivation

Openness to new

To develop this valuable quality in yourself, you can use a simple but very effective exercise, which is to find as many options as possible for the most common things. Let it be a regular towel, old bucket, or just a piece of cardboard. Come up with as many options as possible for how you can use these things. It is not only interesting but also fun. Therefore, practice this exercise with your family and children. They will have a great time and work on their imagination and ingenuity.

Two random words

Open any book or magazine, randomly select any two words from the text and try to find something in common between them. Compare them, analyze, reflect and make connections. It's an effective and fun brain workout.

Exercise to improve adaptability

Finally - the well-known Elevator Pitch method - the presentation of your business project in 30-60 seconds. Imagine that you are your own business project. Start presenting yourself as brightly as possible, while remaining honest with yourself.

Use this template to get started:

1. Name.
2. Profession.
3. Hobby.
4. How do I change the world for the better?

Each of these exercises will help you improve emotionally and psychologically. However, you shouldn't think of emotional intelligence as the universal key to success. Life is multifaceted enough. Therefore, perfect your mind, body, soul and love yourself. After all, the only thing that we can control in this world is ourselves.

“Monsica. What are emotions and how to be friends with them , Victoria Shimanskaya