In the past few weeks I’ve been writing and delivering lots of training (to adults) on resilience. There’s a lot to the science of bouncing back!
A core competency that helps build resilience is our Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ). Of late, one of our 4 YO girls has been struggling with some BIG emotions. It can be really challenging for her…and the rest of us! It’s provided us with the perfect opportunity to expand what we’re doing with the girls. We've been having fun learning more about our emotions and how we can identify and manage them - developing our Self-Awareness.
If you’d like to do this too, below are some tips and games you can use with your kids.
Six ways to develop our kids EQ
1. Play Games
Play games that involve them thinking about naming emotions.
- Match the emotion
- Acting
- Sliding hand
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2. Name and validate emotions in the moment – both positive and negative emotions. If the emotions are too high, give them time to calm and then have a chat about what both you and they observed, how it made you feel and what are some things we can do next time.
3. Emotional Literacy – Find ways to talk about and name common emotions. You can do this when you’re reading books to your kids, watching sport or movies on TV.
4. Gratitude! Yes, this is a good one as we can use this conversation to understand why I am grateful, what other emotions/actions this evokes, and think about qualities in others that we appreciate (social skills).
5. Share Stories from our day and how we’re feeling. This one should be first as it’s all about how we model it!
The other day I had the opportunity to film e-learning sessions. I haven’t spent a lot of time in front of a camera and I was nervous. I had spent a long time preparing, reviewing, practising etc. On the morning of, Isa had asked me a couple of times to do something for her, I was distracted. After about her third time requesting, I paused and reflected – and grasped the moment. I apologised and acknowledged I was distracted. I shared what was on my agenda for the day and that I was feeling both nervous and excited all at the same time. I committed to paying more attention to now and I then attended to the girls; with as much mindful presence I could muster!
6. Know our Strengths Understanding our strengths are a core competence of self-awareness. Our books help your kids understand what their strengths are and how they can use them to bounce back, build social skills, understand their motivators and connect and build empathy with others.
And here’s an extra one to reflect on – not all kids express themselves in the same way with big verbal ques. You can also look for how your kids are drawing, what they are writing about and listen for what they say in their imaginary play and as they sing songs around us. All this play is so informative!
A little more on EQ
- and why we focus first on Self-Awareness
In the late 90’s Goleman bought EQ from the world of psychology into the public sphere. Goleman defines emotional intelligence as:
“the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those
of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing
emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”
(Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence 1998)
Goleman talks about two sides of EQ – personal competence and social competent. Under personal competence sits:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Regulation
- Motivation
Under Social Competence sits:
- Social Skills
- Empathy
Self-awareness is the foundation of EQ. We first need to develop awareness of self in order to regulate and move into other behaviours like empathy (understanding other’s emotions) and social skills.