Middle Years Matters
Emotional Intelligence and our young people
Emotional intelligence is a key ingredient for forming strong relationships and developing one’s inter-personal skills. Research indicates that it acts as a strong predictor of long-term success. Helping our young people develop it while they transition through the turbulent period of adolescence involves both home and the College working together. The wellbeing of our students and staff is of great importance, and when discussing wellbeing in schools, resilience is a word that is the first to pass through our lips. It is safe to say that we can agree that building resilience is an important life skill for everyone and one that will support them not only through their schooling life but well into their future as well.
So how can we help our young students build resilience?
If you ask our students, they will say that the term resilience means the ability to continue even if there are set-backs along the way – to not give up. But there are many ways to define resilience and to build resilience we must look deeper. It is important that we consider how to develop the emotional intelligence of our students.
Emotional intelligence in very general terms means to understand oneself and others. A person could be considered emotionally intelligent if they can demonstrate a general awareness of different perspectives and the maintenance of healthy relationships with others. Looking deeper there are five basic components that encompass emotional intelligence (see the figure below).
|
Self-Awareness |
The understanding of one’s own emotions, thoughts, and intentions. A student is self-aware when they can pinpoint what they are feeling and why. |
|
Self-regulation |
The capacity to manage one’s own behaviour in a multitude of scenarios. This means not being overtaken by emotion, having outbursts, and making poor choices that are often regretted at some future point. |
|
Empathy |
The ability to value and understand the experiences of another. Being empathetic involves appreciating the perspective of others, even if it is different from our own. |
|
Decision-making |
The capacity to identify and make responsible choices. Good decision making involves acting, while also understanding and accepting the outcome. |
|
Social Skills |
The means required to build and maintain healthy connections with others. Being socially appropriate when they understand what it takes to create bonds with others and preserve them. |
How to build emotional intelligence?
Ideally, the best way is for parents and teachers to model it. Parents, carers, teachers, and role models should display calm, positive behaviour and help the child to unpack scenarios. It is critical to let them experience the emotion and not to try and fix what has caused the distress. For example, a child will become upset or possible angry when a toy or a phone breaks and/or is not working how it should. Often, parents will initially respond by trying to fix it or go to the shops to buy a replacement. When this happens, the parent has resolved the cause of the distress, but they have not addressed the emotions displayed by the child. The child’s mood will most likely improve, but it does not prompt them to practice emotional intelligence with these low-stakes scenarios. This is an opportunity missed.
The same often occurs when there are minor friendship disagreements or some friction among members of a social circle. It is important that students have the opportunity to feel their emotions and then begin to understand them from a young age when the stakes are low. This will better prepare them for bigger, much more involved scenarios later in life. Fixing these problems for students may help them in the short term but creates the risk of developing students will low emotional intelligence and limited resilience in the long term.
Here are some simple steps parents and caregivers can use to turn an incident into an opportunity to coach emotional intelligence:
|
Step |
Description |
Explanation |
|
1 |
Be aware of your child’s emotions |
Parents who emotion coach are aware of their own feelings and sensitive to the emotions present in their children. They do not require their child to amp up their emotional expression for the feelings to be acknowledged.
|
|
2 |
See emotions as an opportunity for connection and teaching.
|
Children’s emotions are not an inconvenience or a challenge. They are an opportunity to connect with your child and coach them through a challenging feeling. |
|
3 |
Listen and validate the feelings
|
Give your child your full attention while you listen to their emotional expression. Reflect back what you hear, thus telling your child you understand what they’re seeing and experiencing. |
|
4 |
Communicate empathy and understanding - Label their emotions |
After you have fully listened, help your child develop an awareness of and vocabulary for their emotional expression.
|
|
5 |
Help your child problem-solve with limits |
All emotions are acceptable, but all behaviours are not. Help your child cope with his or her emotions by developing problem-solving skills. Limit the expression to appropriate behaviours. This involves helping your child set goals and generating solutions to reach those goals. |
It is okay for a parent or teacher to be involved in repairing the situation, but it is essential to work with the young person to discuss and process their emotions beforehand. Supporting students in naming and processing incidents before finding a solution is critical. When discussion is encouraged, we help the young person to develop emotional intelligence and, ultimately, support them in regulating their emotions, build inter-personal skills, and develop and maintain healthy relationships.
Craig Cullen
Assistant Principal Middle Years