How to educate emotionally?

Dealing with emotions is not so easy, but the sooner we start the healthier our children's emotional inteligence will be. The parents should teach them to think about emotions so that they can identify what they feel and also how others feel. 

There is no right age to start teaching emotions or a better methodology for it, it depends on how the family and the child will deal with them. It's the responsabilitie of the parents to help their children in dealing, expressing, and controling their emotions, and  favoring communication with whomever is around them.

A simple example to work with their emotions are tantrums, such as when the child cries and screams for not getting dessert. This is the perfect moment for the parent to support the child and tell that althougt she may be feeling frustrated for not getting dessert, which is normal, at the moment she won't. 

At the same time when all this is happening, you can deal with important topics. In this simple example above, you can work with the definition of a feeling that can be unknown to the child, thus allowing her to identify not just what she is feeling but also become aware of other feelings she is experiencing at the moment; you legitimize a feeling and also reassure that it is normal, and there are certain ways to express it. If you find it appropriate, you can share situations when you also felt the same way and how you handled that.

The main point is that often children feel and express emotions in different manners. So they must learn to express what they feel, without hurting others and more importantly, without hurting themselves.

In old posts such as "jealousy of the children towards the couple", "my son does not know how to lose", "it was nothing" and "how to deal with children's questions", I discuss how these moments can also be used to educate emotionally!

See you next time,
Laura

Photo: Pascal Campion