Expanding Emotional Intelligence
Learning how to manage our emotions early on, has a great impact on our life trajectory. It affects our learning ability, physical health, mental health, and it prevents impulsive behaviors. This ability to control our emotional responses is called self-regulation. Your child’s brain is still developing so this may be difficult for them, but coping strategies will help!
There are 5 skills to build emotional intelligence; self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. The first step is identifying what emotions you are feeling and how it affects others. Then you control your emotions and accomplish your goal without letting negative feelings affect you. You also understand how others feel and have the ability to build deep relationships. Studies show that children with more emotional awareness and empathy are more likely to have stronger mental health and a rewarding school experience.
This week’s tips and activities are designed to help your child explore and deal with their emotions through games and coping strategies. At the end, you will build a stronger bond with your child while setting them up for higher emotional intelligence.
Mission
Nurture your child’s emotional intelligenceGoals
DUE Friday, July 30th
4 Tips to Keep in Mind
Be an emotion coach
Help your child accurately recognize & label their emotions (not just fine, good - use excited, curious, worried etc.)
Really listen to them & care about the causation of their feelings
Validate them & let them know you understand and accept them (you don’t have to agree, judge or correct them)
Help your child self-regulate & cope
Support your child’s self-regulation
Maintain realistic expectations (children have less developed brains & need time & practice to learn)
See negative emotions as a chance to teach skills to cope with stress & choose appropriate behavior
Hold back from punishing dysregulated behavior & notice where they need extra support
Do not overload your child with too many responsibilities that increase stress & make it harder to regulate emotions
Find opportunities to practice empathy
Hold family meetings for family challenges and discussions, and give your child a voice to encourage them to see things from other family members’ points of view
Practice self-reflection and conflict resolving with your child and role-play different ways everyone could have handled the situation
Consider participating in community service or other ways to contribute to a community with your child
Model positive relationships with feelings
Oftentimes children don’t fully understand the meaning of saying “I’m sorry” to make up for their actions
Instead, help children focus on how others are feeling to let them learn the consequences of their actions
e.g. “My friend looks sad, she’s crying and rubbing the part where you pushed her. Let’s go see if she’s okay.” In this case, they will realize that being sad and crying is how others will feel (consequence) when they push someone
Suggest achievable actions that help show they care and model positive relationships (e.g. “let’s help find a bandaid for her”)
Activities
1. Coping Strategies
Coping strategies teach individuals to manage their emotions in a healthy way. This is an important life long skill that will empower your child to handle difficult situations.
Teaching, practicing and instilling calming strategies in your child will help prevent them from resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms like self-harm, unhealthy eating, withdrawl or aggression. Do not react, respond to avoid, remove or lessen a stressful situation.
The PDF below provides 12 ways to handle big emotions!
1. Print it out & have your child color it while explaining the strategies
2. Cut out the cards and put them in a bag
3. Whenever your child has big emotions, have them pick a card
4. Then practice that coping strategy
You can also print it twice to create a matching game.
Ability to handle stress & adversity
Modeling adaptive not maladaptive coping
Empowers child to make better choices
Practice & learn emotional management
2. Mood Management
When children have big emotions it may often feel overwhelming and hard to handle because children are naturally emotional beings. Their brain cortex is not developed, therefore, children lack cognitive thinking abilities to express and calm themselves in rational ways.
Frustrations, anger, upset, hurt, stressed or tired are all valid emotions. After the trigger has been dealt with and the emotion has been labeled. You can help co-regulate your child’s emotions by providing them with strategies to calm down and change their mood.
Print and cut out this mood management wheel for quick, easy, calming techniques. Whenever your child has big feelings, have them pick a strategy to change their mood. You can use a clothes pin or clip to mark their choice!
Practice self-regulation and self-control
Improves behavior & decisions
Improves confidence & independence
Lower levels of stress and anxiety
3. Practicing Empathy with Stories
Reading story books or watching movies with your child is a great opportunity to have meaningful conversations about emotions, values, and life skills. Challenge your child to think from the perspective of different characters throughout the story.
Understand:
What happened that made the character feel that way? When do you ever feel the same way?
Recognize:
How is the character feeling? How do you know he/she is feeling that way? How would you feel if that happened to you?
Regulate:
What did the character do because he/she felt that way? What could they have done instead? If you were there with them, what would you do?
Express:
How did the character act when he/she was feeling that way? How do you act when you feel the same emotions?
Check out these story books that are perfect for teaching empathy:
Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose
Buy it here or watch an online read aloud:
I am Human by Susan Verde
Buy it here or watch an online read aloud:
Practicing seeing things from others’ point of view
Better social problem-solving skills
More likely to engage in positive social behaviors such as helping others and sharing
Leads to better social skills and communication
4. Learning facial expressions
Learning about empathy often starts by recognizing how others are feeling such as through body language and expressions. When a child misses these social cues, they can often misunderstand people and situations. It takes time and practice to differentiate the types of emotions through their expressions.
Here are some activities to help your child practice facial expressions:
Take photos of your child’s friends and look for different facial expressions on their faces
Have your child identify what sort of feeling is being expressed in each photo
Ask them “What makes you think they feel that way?” or “Has anyone else made that face before?”
Play a game by having each of you pick out a photo and mimic the expression, then you’ll have to guess what the correct emotion is
Look at yourself in a mirror
Make different faces with the corresponding emotions
Notice and feel how different features and muscles move to make an expression
“What do my eyebrows do when I show angry eyes?” “What does my mouth do when I am surprised?”
Practice during screen time use
Find rewatched or new shows/movies, turn off the sound and guess what they are feeling
You can play the scene and turn the volume on to reveal the answer
Side note: it is important to emphasize that there are no “good” or “bad” emotions, we all need these emotions to help communicate our feelings!
More likely to engage in positive social behaviors such as helping others and sharing
Leads to better social skills and fewer behavioral problems
Reduces risks and engagement with bullying
More stable mental health and well being
Increases confidence and positive sense of self