How to improve children's emotional education: 15 keys

Emotional intelligence is a great forgotten in our educational system. But, as parents, we are not paying adequate attention to the correct development of the emotional aspect of our children.

In order to get off to a good start in this endeavor to help you discover and enhance your emotions, I have allowed myself to write this practical guide.

1. A shared obligation

Parents, teachers, those who are both things at the same time, and all adults without exception are responsible for children receiving emotional education they deserve, so that they can acquire a good emotional intelligence and a balanced personality. But, of course, the adult who is imbued with misconceptions on this subject, will not be able to provide adequate education and can - involuntarily - contribute a negative influence to the good end that intended.

2. There are no negative emotions

Input, it is essential to be clear that the discrimination between negative emotions and positive emotions is incorrect. All emotions have a utility for the individual survival of the child. What we have to teach the child is that, when faced with an emotion, there are positive reactions and concrete behaviors that are negative for society and can lead to problems.

3. Staged emotional maturity

Another fundamental concept is that the emotional maturity of the child grows in successive stages, from birth to emotional coming of age, as he becomes master of his brain functions. The treatment of her emotions must be appropriate, therefore, at each stage of her evolution or we run the risk of unintentionally harming her or - at the very least - wasting inappropriate efforts.

Up to six months the child only obeys sensory and motor stimuli (instinctively based) and is not aware of her emotions. From this age he can begin to differentiate his basic emotions with the help of adults. Until about three years old he is not in a position to change his behavior in a stable way based on emotions (intuitive ability). And until he enters the operational stage, at approximately six years of age, he cannot apply "the use of reason" to his behaviors and learn to work as a team. From this age he learns to identify and name the basic emotions who experiences and can reflect on them and subject them to self-control. But good management of derived emotions and feelings will not be in a position to achieve it until the age of ten or eleven. And the maturity of knowing how to foresee the consequences of their actions and the ability to plan with a vision of the future, usually does not come before the age of sixteen: the emotional age of majority.

4. With love is not enough

A very frequent mistake is to think that if we give children love and protection, the result of their emotional intelligence will necessarily be good.. Love and protection are, of course, essential. But they are not enough. They must be accompanied by a balanced emotional education. If the parents overprotect by excess of permissiveness, or they are authoritarian and too severe or they are uncontrolled and unpredictable, emotional damage can seriously affect the personality of the future adult, despite love received.

5. How do you know if a child has emotional problems?

Diagnosing that a child is having problems in their emotional education is very easy. A healthy child is restless, impatient, noisy, spontaneous, playful, curious, creative, social, trusting with his companions and with adults... Any lack of any of these characteristics will have to be analyzed because it can constitute an alert of possible problems emotional We will have to detect in which basic emotions the child feels overwhelmed and offer him the appropriate support.

6. How to deal with your fears

Let's start with the afraid. A child has many causes of possible fears: to be left alone, to be abandoned, to be a nuisance, to be rejected, to not be able to feed, to the dark, to the cold, heat, inclement nature, to become ill, to strangers, to authoritarian or hostile people, to be to blame that mom and dad discuss... The solution is to firmly give him the security he needs.

Physical security against disease, hunger and all kinds of physical dangers. And affective security. It is convenient for parents to repeat as many times as necessary that they wanted him before he was born, that they love him as he is and that they will always love him. If the child misbehaves, we will tell him that we don't like what he does, but that he is loved without any kind of doubts or objections. As the extraordinary psychopedagogue Rebeca Wild says: "If the child feels good, he does not behave badly."

7. How to deal with your tantrums

Let's get on with the anger. A child in a tantrum can display spectacular energy. The causes of the tantrum can also be multiple: they have given a refusal to a desire or a whim, they have taken a toy, they have “unjustly” scolded him, they ignore him or do not listen to him, he has been beaten or humiliated and he has not been able to fend… The support that the child needs here is understanding.

Show him bluntly that we understand the cause of his tantrum but that he must learn to control it; teach him to be less selfish and to know how to share his belongings; that we must get used to enduring some frustrations in life; that you have to look for new motivations and new expectations and not give up; that you have to defend yourself from injustices with calm and serenity; that dangers must be avoided in a preventive way ...

8. How to deal with your sadness

Another basic emotion is sadness. For having lost a toy, a favorite object, a pet or a loved one; for not being able to be with friends; for not having the same as the children around him; for having lost father and mother… The adequate support is consolation. Show him empathy for your loss, our accompaniment in your grief, offer you help to cope with your loss, support you with distractions such as games and new motivations.

9. The power of games

Play is an instinctive activity in the child and therefore it must be the favorite distraction from the child's bad tendencies. All pedagogues and psychologists agree on the physical, physiological, emotional, social and cognitive benefits of team games.

10. How to deal with your shame

One of the most dire emotions of possible consequences is shame. Shame about being too big or too small; for being fat or skinny; for being different; for having physical problems or disabilities; for not understanding what they are talking about; for not knowing how to express himself; for having done something wrong; for having suffered physical or sexual abuse... The best help to overcome shame is boost your self-esteem.

Repeat as many times as necessary that each person is unique and is worth as much as the most. Teach him to improve his problems or defects without stressing him out. Help you recognize your mistakes and overcome them. Teach him to socialize and have corresponding friends. Earn your trust to make us participate in possible physical or sexual abuse.

11. Loss of self-esteem

We must avoid by all means that the child falls into loss of self-esteem. Because this implies that the child internalizes that he is useless and is useless; that he doesn't deserve to be loved; that it is natural that they ignore or despise it; that it is logical that they mock him and humiliate him.

As a consequence of lack of self-esteem in childhood and adolescence, in adulthood we will have people with behavioral disorders. If there has been a passive reaction, the adult will show serious affective dependencies; fear of being intimate; fear of public speaking and getting noticed; a pathological insecurity; an inferiority complex. If there has been an aggressive reaction, the adult will present strong tendencies towards tyranny, despotism, cruelty, egocentric narcissism, to an exaggerated shell of false security.

12. Basic Recommendations

It is worth paying attention to a number of recommendations:

• Attention should be paid to the age of the child and not to pose situations for which he lacks the necessary emotional maturity.
• You have to try to put yourself in the child's shoes and understand his reasons and motivations. Ask him and listen to him.
• There is no use trying to get the child to reason when he is immersed in an emotional abduction, we must wait for him to calm down.
• We must never recriminate him because he has experienced an emotion, just make him notice the negative behaviors that he has aroused and offer him the possible positive behaviors.
• Abstract speeches should be avoided; use short, action-oriented phrases. Without applying degrading, humiliating or offensive adjectives to her behavior.
• Lead by example. Do not mind showing your own emotions, showing how they are under control.
• You have to recognize your own mistakes and show what is being done to repair them.
• Between adults, avoid having conversations of inappropriate topics for children in front of them.
• Never lie to them, under any pretext. Save them the part of the facts that they are not trained to understand, but do not alter the truth with falsehoods.
• Do not allow under any circumstances that the child mocks, humiliates, disrespects or treats any person or animal badly.
• Never apply any type of violence (neither physical nor verbal) or any emotional blackmail.
• Not wanting to buy her affection or indulgence with our infirmities through material things.
• We must face the need to set limits and train the child to cope with frustrations for social or economic reasons.
• For mental hygiene, we must prevent the child from falling into the addiction to solitary games of Tablet or PlayStation.
• Motivation with rewards and inhibition with punishments must be managed correctly.
• Both rewards and punishments have to be proportional, fair and consistent. They must be exceptional but stable. The rewards must be affordable, the punishments avoidable.
• The awards have to celebrate the triumph of a previous effort. Punishments have to involve real annoyance or effort.
• It is essential to warn before punishing and explain the reasons for the punishments.
• We must encourage their curiosity and encourage their creativity. Do not block your initiative with predetermined recipes of how to do things.
• We must be receptive to the things in life that we can learn by observing and talking with children.
• Always show them that you love them permanently and indestructibly.

13. Emotional wounds

Caregivers who apply harsh punishments with coldness and authoritarianism have been shown to, without affection towards children, can cause personality disorders in future adults: fanaticism for order, obsessive compulsive behaviors, pathological insecurities, sick perfectionisms.

As Canadian writer Lise Bourbeau tells us, the five great emotional wounds that usually leave a mark on the child's future are: rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal and injustice. The main motivation of parents to try to avoid these five emotional wounds for their children by all means, may be the memory of having suffered them in their childhood.

14. Against the feeling of abandonment

The child can endure long absences from his parents if he has irrefutable evidence that he want and the people who care for him frequently enliven the memory and hope of the reunion. Emotional security is more a matter of intensity than frequency.

15. We have all been children

To facilitate the understanding of the child's emotions and behaviors, it should be remembered that we were also children and that the child that we were lives on within us. We must get it back so that we can be good friends with our children.. With love, balance, protection, understanding, trust, comfort, appropriate reward and punishment systems and - above all - cultivating your self-esteem, we will achieve that our children, our grandchildren, the children all of our society get the emotional intelligence that is deserve.

Bibliographic references:

• Borbeau, Lise. The five wounds that prevent being oneself. OB Stare, 2003.
• Lòpez Cassà, E. Emotional education. Program for 3-6 years. Wolfers Kluwer, 2003.
• Renom, A. Emotional education. Program for primary education (6 - 12 years). Wolfers Kluwer, 2003.
• Wild, Rebecca. Freedom and limits. Love and respect. Herder, 2012.