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5 steps to nurture emotional intelligence in your child

Miniland Educational: Playing today, for tomorrow

By Miniland

September 26, 2017

8 Minute read

It’s hard to know how to teach your child emotional intelligence. Understandably it can be a bit of a challenge trying to get them to react meaningfully and empathetic to others when they hardly understand their own feelings.

However, it’s imperative to get your child started with developing their emotional intelligence from as early as possible. Going to school without a secure handle on their emotions and how to react to others’ won’t go very well, and they may find it hard to make friends.

Emotional intelligence is not just great for their personal life, but will also help your child to better negate difficult classmates, work colleagues, bosses and even in-laws when the time comes. So it really is an important skill set to have.

Here is our advice on 5 steps to nurture emotional intelligence in your child:

Have empathy towards your own child

Chances are that your child is going to act out of sorts, or completely overreact to something that is completely avoidable. However, it’s important not to dismiss your child’s feelings. You need to acknowledge their feelings, look at the situation from their perspective and then work through it in a more constructive way. This will help them get a hold of their emotions and learn to demonstrate empathy when other kids get upset too.

Encourage expression

The worst kind of emotion is a repressed one. It can be challenging to not minimize or berate your child’s feeling when you think they are being overly dramatic or ridiculous. However, through shouting at them you could create a fear or a belief that certain feelings should be hidden. This often results in pent-up feelings that manifest in other ways that come to the surface at a much later stage.

Listen to your child

The nature of emotions that are healthy is when they come into our body, swamp or blind us, and then pass away. However they can only pass away if they are expressed or dealt with, otherwise, they end up becoming more deep-rooted. No matter the age of your child, let them talk and express their feelings openly to you and you will be surprised at how quickly they move on. Giving your child a platform for speaking about their emotions makes them more comfortable and better able to work through what they are going through in a healthy way.

Teach them how to solve their problems

Emotions are there for a reason, they are an expression or reaction to a certain situation. Teach your child how to breathe through their emotions, how to feel them and not necessarily react to them immediately,  Once they have gotten hold of their overwhelming emotions, they will be able to better problem solve, and understand the way that they should react to the situation once they are calm.

Play games

Children learn through having fun, and it’s a great way to teach them how to recognize certain emotions and how to handle them. It also makes it easier for them to identify to you, how they are feeling. Miniland educational toys are perfect for teaching your children about emotions, empathy, and values.

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Our products were designed with different skill sets in mind, and we have a whole range of educational toys that can teach your children how to identify their emotions, how to handle their emotions and to communicate with you about how they are feeling. Contact us for more information.

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