4 Skills That Help Build Your Child's Emotional Intelligence

Nearly a century ago, Edward Thorndike, American psychologist and researcher, had the insight to reveal that IQ is not the only form of intelligence. He was actually referring to emotional intelligence, which arises from two primary factors: personal and social competence.

Emotional intelligence is no longer news to us. Whenever I attend a child’s birthday celebration, most parents would wish for their child to grow kind, good-natured, compassionate, and loving. In essence, we want our children to become good people. 

Read Also: Don't Just Focus On IQ. Why Emotional Intelligence Is Also Important For Future Success

Achieving individual success was developing four unique EQ skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and interpersonal relationship management. - Science Journal

Based on the 2024 Smart Parenting Audience Survey Report, we found out that 86% of the respondents believe that “a sign of successful parenting is if my child grows up to be a good person and citizen.” Furthermore, respect and kindness are the top two values parents want to cultivate in their kids, followed closely by confidence, manners, and gratitude. Parents of today put more attention on EQ than IQ in child-rearing.

But how do you define an emotionally intelligent child?

According to a Science journal titled, “Methods of developing children's emotional intelligence,” achieving individual success was aimed at discovering the four unique areas of EQ: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and interpersonal relationship management. One’s ability to manage emotions will be highly dependent on these skills.

Self Awareness. This is the capacity of identifying and recognizing one's own emotions, the real causes of the occurrence of emotions, and the significance of these emotions.

Self Management. It is about controlling emotions of anger, rage and the tolerance of one's own frustration, as well as stress management. It also deals with the expression of rage in a natural, appropriate, unaggressive way.

Social Awareness. This is about recognizing the emotions transmitted by the people around them and understanding of the people around.

Interpersonal Relationship Management. This deals with reading nonverbal language which helps understanding communication or acknowledging the causes of stress or other bad moods that one might be in at a certain moment.

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“An emotionally intelligent person is not the one that has no emotions or the one that does not express them,” study finds. An emotionally intelligent child is aware of his own emotions and knows how to self-regulate; someone who has empathy and capacity to recognize other people’s emotions.

“If we were told that from the very beginning that childhood defines adult mental health, we would take care to be more loving of a child’s soul.” - Lael Stone

What are we doing wrong?

We’re all in the same boat. Parenting, as we all know, is not a closed research. It continuously evolves. We learn and unlearn a lot of things along the way. For example, in dealing with our children's emotions, most of us are wired to say “Stop, don’t cry,” when our child is upset because we want to instantly resolve crying, without giving attention to what the cry was all about. When the crying stops, that’s it–problem solved.

In a Ted Talk, "How To Raise Emotionally Intelligent Children," the speaker, Lael Stone, makes a bold statement, “If we were told that from the very beginning that childhood defines adult mental health, we would take care to be more loving of a child’s soul.”

Then it means it doesn’t end where the crying stops.

According to the talk, parents don’t know how to respond to children’s feelings and emotions with empathy and compassion. Here’s what we’re doing wrong.

Repression

"Perhaps as a child, you learned that it wasn’t safe to express your feelings," Stone says, "we’re probably told to stop crying or given a “look" to push feelings deep down." And the problem, according to her, is that the feelings stay there and come up in adulthood when similar themes arise if life throws a curveball–but this time, “we respond by having another glass of wine or spending hours mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or making ourselves so busy at work that we don’t have time to feel.”

Aggression

Stone describes this kind of response as feeling powerless as a child or scared. She explains, "We grew up in an authoritarian environment where we didn’t have a voice and couldn’t say how we felt, then those feelings would again bubble up inside us. At the point where they would tip over when we felt most frightened or threatened, then they might come out in the form of aggression, rage, loud words. You might have been labeled as “naughty”, “too much” or “trouble” when all you were doing was responding to your environment.”

As adults this can translate to bullying or violence.

Read Also: Let Your Kids Get Frustrated: Psychologist Explains Why It's Good For Children

As parents, what can we do?

Stone talks about another means to approach emotions and she calls it, “expression,” where feelings are welcome–the happy bits, the sad bits, the joyous bits, the bits that are angry. If we're free to express these feelings as a child, when we become adults, we learn to feel them hard, we find ways to manage them like talking to a friend, doing yoga, going for a run, etc. until we’re able to let go.

Psychology Today says, "research has found that emotional intelligence can be learned–as long as adults are providing educational tools to children." The article offers a practical guide for parents in raising emotionally intelligent children and this can be translated below.

How can we raise emotionally intelligent children?

Model Emotional Awareness. Recognize your emotions openly and talk about them throughout the day to help kids understand that everyone experiences a range of emotions, and that these feelings can change. For example, while sharing a meal, discuss a moment from your day when you felt a strong emotion, explaining how you managed it and what you learned in the process.

Related: How to Teach Your Toddler to Express Their Feelings

Teach Emotional Vocabulary. Expanding a child's vocabulary for feelings helps them express emotions more clearly, reducing frustration and strengthening communication. You might say, “It looks like you’re feeling angry right now,” or “I can see how excited you are about this new toy!”

Encourage Empathy. Help children learn empathy by discussing others' perspectives and feelings, whether through story characters or real-life situations. After a playdate, ask your child how they think their friends felt. Younger children can be encouraged to show feelings with facial expressions, helping them connect with how others might feel and understand the impact of their actions.

Practice Active Listening. Show your child the importance of listening by giving them your undivided attention during conversations. This validates their emotions and fosters open communication. 

Role Play. Use role-playing to help children practice handling different emotions and solving problems, which builds their confidence in real situations. Create scenarios where they encounter challenges and discuss emotional responses and coping strategies, guiding them to develop new skills in a supportive way.

Why it’s important to cultivate their EQ

Raising children is a huge responsibility because the way we mold them today impacts the kind of people they become in adulthood.

We want our children to turn out to be good people, kind people; we want them to be able to feel their own emotions and get past it if the situation warrants it. We don’t want them to be bullies and perpetrators. We want them to be self-aware and socially aware; to embody self management and social understanding.

The path is not going to be easy but if we provide a safe space for our children to feel and label their emotions; if we model them the kind of behavior we hope them to emulate, then hope is not lost, and we continue to learn (and unlearn) as we navigate through this parenting journey.

Do kids need to learn grit? Find out here.