Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize and express our feelings in healthy ways, and to respond with empathy to the feelings of others. It has been proven to be more important for a child’s eventual success in life than their IQ.

Parents gathered alongside TEENS, Inc. facilitators for the Mountain Strong Families Series in December. They learned a process for teaching children about their emotions and how to integrate their nervous system when emotions seem overwhelming

The evening started with the premise that behind all behavior lies emotions. When we only focus on external behavior, we miss the chance to understand the reasons behind it. All emotions give us valuable information about ourselves. In an attempt to stop seeing some emotions as negative, parents were encouraged to describe feelings as either “comfortable” or “uncomfortable” sensations in our bodies.

Every emotion creates a different physical sensation. Young children are trying to make sense of this with limited vocabulary to express themselves. We can ask, “What is your body telling you? Does your body seem rigid or relaxed, heavy or light, cold or hot, high energy or low?”

We can also describe the emotional reactions we see in our child’s body: “I can see you are tensing up. It seems like you’re feeling frustrated because you want to do this by yourself.” Awareness of our body’s messages is foundational to developing emotional awareness.

We can increase our children’s emotional awareness by pausing throughout the day to check in with our sensations. What am I noticing in my body? We can also scan up and down from our head to toes while noticing what we may be ignoring. Tuning into sensations like heart rate, muscle tension and energy level, and connecting them to emotions, can make it easier to manage feelings when they first present themselves.

A second way that children develop Emotional Intelligence is by expanding their emotional vocabulary. Three-to-five year-olds know less than three emotion words. Most challenging behavior is a child’s way of expressing an emotion that they don’t have words for.

Young children may say everything makes them mad. Typically, anger is a secondary emotion overshadowing hurt, fear, or sadness. We can help children expand their ability to distinguish between different kinds and intensities of emotions by using a Feeling Chart. We can learn new emotion words together as we talk about what it means to feel exasperated, content, or discouraged. Some families create the routine of checking-in with each other over dinner each night. They each share a “rose and a thorn” or a high and a low from their day and how it made them feel. The picture book, Even Tough Guys Have Feelings, helps normalize the wide range of emotions that humans feel.

The mere act of labeling your emotion shifts brain activity from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex. Emotional literacy allows for both selfexpression and self-regulation. Using emotion words begins to lower the intensity of the feeling. We cannot just tell children to “use your words,” they need an understanding of a vast number of emotion words.

Emotional Intelligence also helps us realize that emotions are caused by needs. Behind every uncomfortable emotion is an unmet need. When our needs are met, we have comfortable feelings. We want our children to develop their own internal compass; to be aware of their basic needs. We can get in the habit of asking: “What are you feeling and what do you need to feel better?”

Every human has physical needs, social & emotional, intellectual needs, needs for esteem, creativity and spiritual growth. When we are perplexed by our child’s behavior, we can stop and inquire what basic need is driving that outward display. The more times that we lovingly address the underlying need, the more the child will grow to nurture themselves and others.

Parents can also model Emotional Intelligence in front of children. How could you express the awareness of sensations, the identification of an emotion, the underlying need and a healthy coping strategy for addressing your upset feelings? Facilitator Betsy Epp gave an example that she shared with her children: “I’m beginning to get hot and tense when fixing dinner and your demands for my attention are increasing. I realize I’m feeling overwhelmed and need to take a break. I’m going to take a few deep breaths in the next room before I return to talk about your questions.” Saying this out loud in front of your children helps them see your emotional awareness and use of a healthy regulation strategy.

Finally, parents grappled with how to help a child learn to regulate their big emotions. The major way a child learns this is through co-regulation. When we model calm right next to their chaos, the neurons in their brain begin to mirror our calmer emotional state. When we respond with elevated emotions and punitive reactions, it prevents the neural pathways in their brain from developing. Contrary to the popular method of serving a misbehaving child with a timeout, parents discussed how to practice emotion regulation strategies alongside their child during a time-in: “Let’s take a moment to calm ourselves before we talk about what just happened.”

Families discovered there are six different strategies that can regulate a nervous system. Finding which ones work best for your child and with which emotions is the key. The most powerful calming practice known to humans is deep, slow breathing. It lowers the intensity of an emotional reaction by slowing the heart rate and lowering one’s blood pressure. Drawing how you feel or listening to calming music also regulates the body. Using words to journal, read, or express oneself also lowers the intensity of emotions. Sensory items like watching a glitter jar, smelling soothing aromas, massaging one’s hands, cuddling with a stuffed animal, or taking a nature break work wonders. Emotions like anger and anxiety also often require movement to decrease the levels of cortisol and adrenaline. And a temporary distraction, like a Rubik’s Cube or I-spy book, can give the rational part of the brain time to catch up with the emotional reaction.

Children are begging for us to stop reacting to their behaviors and help them understand and express their inner world in a healthy way. Practicing calming strategies with children will ideally prime them for developing a healthy routine, i.e. “When my brother starts to annoy me, I just start breathing and drawing.”

The next Mountain Strong Families session, “Teaching the Social Skills of Empathy and Communication” is on Tuesday, January 31, 2023. Contact ann@teensinc.org to reserve your spot, childcare, and a free family dinner at Nederland Elementary School.

Ann Sherman is the host of the Mountain Strong Families parenting series.