Because of hectic and fast lives, often we find ourselves venting out our frustrations at our children. We do not realize what we are doing. They are incapable of understanding their own emotions how will they understand ours?
Before raising their Intelligence Quotient (IQ), raising of Emotional Quotient (EQ) is very important. After all we want to see an emotionally intelligent child be able to scale new heights and be prepared for all frontiers.
Pay attention to your child’s feelings
We have often seen that the child comes up to the mother/father and wants to share something with them, the parent is busy on laptop or a cell phone so without drifting their attention off the screen, they hear the child out. Sometimes they don’t even know what the child has said and after the child is done telling the whole thing, you come up with “what did you just say?”
This disappoints your child and he feels emotionally let down.
You as a parent will have to be completely aware of your child’s emotions. You must validate his/her feelings.
Your child might not say it but each child needs full attention of their parents.
Your work can wait but the trust lost will be a tedious task to build again.
Encourage your child to open up and share everything with you. Provide that comfort level to your ward that he should not hesitate to share even the most embarrassing experience he has had. If you will disapprove of his/her feelings, they will eventually stop sharing them with you and cocoon themselves. Respect their emotions and give them the feeling that no feelings are shameful or can-not-be-shared-with-my parents.
Feeling understood or heard boosts a child’s confidence. You are the role model for your child and every child feels the most secure with his parents. So parents have to play a very vital role in their child’s life.
When you listen to your children, you also help them in reflecting in their lives and experiences. It will enable them to introspect and realize what is going wrong and slowly they will become capable of rationalizing and figuring out where the things are going wrong, whether or not they are on the right path, whether their decisions are helping or harming them.
Your acceptance will help them accept and acknowledge their own feelings. They will learn to grow emotionally stronger and resolve their feelings and move on in the right direction.
Parents often make a big mistake by telling their boys not to cry and display their weaker side. They are sometimes even heard saying “you are not a girl, be strong”
This sets in a feeling in their heart that girls are weaker and display of the weaker side makes them less masculine.
Both the scenarios are completely WRONG. Neither the girls are weak nor does the exposure of their weaker side make them less masculine.
On the contrary teach them that it’s alright to show the weaker side of yours but you must learn to get over and move on much stronger. They need to find constructive solutions to their problems however big or small their problems are.
There are three very important steps you need to follow
- give them a patient hearing,
- Engage them finding out a solution to their problems.
- Encourage them if they need a push from your side to perform better
- Pat them if they have done something good
- DO NOT compare them at all with anyone.
- Most important is- give them the confidence that you trust them. Trust is the biggest gift you can give to your child.
- Do not just empathize with your child, you must teach your child to respect and honor their feelings so that they are empowered to handle different situations effectively without breaking down
In the end, we’d say that an emotionally stable and stronger person always performs better in all spheres of life.
Giving emphasis only to his intellectual growth may not be sufficient
Developing their EQ along with their IQ is equally important.
Shailja Shandil
