Emotional Intelligence

Emotional skills in children

According to Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence can be learned from childhood. Fostering children's emotional maturation will produce in them a healthy self-esteem and will bring benefits in adult life.

Young people with emotional intelligence become adaptable to an ever-changing environment and will accept changes better. They develop assertiveness: they know how to defend their opinions against dissenters without being attacked by them and without feeling the need to attack them. They manage their conflicts in a healthy way and their character is more balanced than that of those who do not work their emotional intelligence.

On the contrary, those children who do not develop their emotional abilities correctly will become adults with emotional disabilities, which will greatly affect them in the personal and work environment, in which they will develop deficiencies caused by the incorrect identification and management of their feelings.

Learning the skills of emotional intelligence is based on:

1. The imitation. Adults should assume that their children learn the behaviors of those around them. It is the responsibility of families and educators to become role models for their children.
2. Direct experience. Through play, children can learn how to deal with the different experiences that can happen to them. Young children will sharpen their problem-solving skills or tolerance for frustration. They will come to understand them as part of life, and that successful people in any field also went through difficulties and managed them. They will understand that success is not a goal, but a consequence.
3. Positive reinforcement of learning. Recognition of the child's good behavior (which can be verbal praise) will help to establish learning.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is a person's ability to manage their emotions in a healthy way. There is hardly any relationship between logical intelligence and emotional intelligence. According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence comprises the following elements:

• Self-awareness. Understood as the person's ability to recognize his or her own emotions and identify strengths and weaknesses and those that can be improved.
• Self-control. Self-control allows the person to control his or her moods and not to be controlled by them. People with self-control reflect rather than act impulsively, ponder the consequences of their actions and are not prisoners of the emotion of the moment; they are aware of the ephemeral life of emotions.
• Motivation. People with emotional intelligence take obstacles for what they really are: training to grow. Their attitude is positive and they focus their attention and encouragement on achieving their goals.
• Empathy. It is the recognition and appreciation of the feelings of others. People with emotional maturity interpret the moods of others and know how to put themselves in their place. Their links with other human beings are deep and long-lasting.
• Social skills. Empathy for others, regardless of whether they are liked or disliked, enables people with emotional intelligence to establish quality relationships based on respect.

Help your children develop other essential skills

Not all of us have the same abilities: there are those who, from a very young age, enjoy a prodigious memory or attention span worthy of a genius. However, even if we don't stand out for these qualities, we can encourage and help develop them in a fun and entertaining way through the selection of games available in our online store, specially designed to help children develop skills such as autonomy and correct time management, fine motor skills, fine motor skills, speech and pronunciation... Let's learn by playing!