8 Things Emotionally Intelligent Parents Do Differently

               

8 Things Emotionally Intelligent Parents Do Differently

Emotional intelligence is “being smarter with feelings.” EQ is a powerful set of learnable skills that can help us to become more aware, make better choices, and be more purposeful in our parenting.

There are two parts to being an emotionally intelligent parent:

1. You must know how to make sense of your own emotion and be able to express that emotion in a way that helps you meaningfully connect with your child.

2. You must also be able to accurately read the emotional cues your child sends (both verbally and non-verbally) and validate those feelings.

Being an emotionally intelligent parent to your child gives your child the opportunity to build emotional intelligence for themselves as they grow. Here are some of the benefits.

Why parents with emotional intelligence? 

Research shows that increased emotional intelligence leads to better health, academic achievement, and stronger relationships! It is a teachable, measurable and science-based skill set that helps children...

• Navigate increasing complexity and stress
• Foster positive, healthy relationships
• Spark innovation and resilience
• Nourish compassion and inner peace
• Grow as a positive change-maker

Emotional intelligence skills are learned - and we believe that parents are the most important people to teach these life-changing and world-changing skills.

Here Are 8 Things Emotionally Intelligent Parents Do Differently

1. They focus on communication. 

Creating a bond between parent and child is one of the top priorities of emotionally intelligent parents. Our modern life, characterized by its stresses and distractions, leaves us feeling stressed and detached from engagement. When taking care of all the tasks, communication with our children seems to be marginalized in our spare time. However, communicating with our children - being fully with them in the moment and focusing 100% of our attention on them - does not take much time.

Emotionally intelligent parents enrich their bonds with their children in ways big and small — by creating minute moments of connection, through daily (or weekly or monthly) rituals or by making special memories together.

2. They take care of themselves.

Parenting is one of the most difficult roles in the world. Emotionally intelligent parents are self-compassionate. They understand that they need to keep their cup full, and that stressing their well-being will make them more patient, happy and energetic. They acknowledge that their needs are valid and invest resources in practicing self-care. When they find themselves exhausted or overwhelmed, they take steps to correct course and prioritize

3. They teach, not punish. 

Discipline entails teaching your child what you expect of him. Emotionally intelligent parents focus on setting boundaries, boundaries, and the consequences of respectfully breaking those boundaries. They are not disciplined to punish them. They understand that consistency and support go a long way in helping children adhere to rules and boundaries. They also realize that yelling, ignoring, or punishing may produce desired results in the short term, but in the long term, it does not enable children to learn skills to manage their behavior.

4. They practice emotional coaching.

It includes training your child to get a feel for his (and your own) feelings, helping your child to recognize and name his feelings, and enabling emotional regulation. Emotionally intelligent parents do not ignore or criticize their children's feelings. They go by the mantra - all feelings are OK (although they understand and pass on to their children that some behaviors are not OK). They view their children's difficult feelings as opportunities for empathy, communication, and education. They enable their children to discover strategies for dealing with emotionally difficult situations.

5. They instill values ​​in their children.

Values ​​are the beliefs that each person considers important to themselves and to all of humanity. Since they strongly influence our behaviors, attitudes, and decisions, values ​​are important in parenting. Emotionally intelligent parents define and communicate their values ​​to their children. However, they realize that simply telling their children to be more honest, diligent, grateful, or compassionate does not work better than telling adults to do so. They formulate the values ​​they uphold, and they name and reinforce the expression of values. They discuss why they make certain decisions based on their values, and encourage their children's initiatives that express emerging values.

6. They develop intrinsic motivation for their children. 

Intrinsic motivation is the ability to persevere and persist in a task despite obstacles and without seeking approval from others. Emotionally intelligent parents help their children set goals (whether those goals relate to academics, chores at home, hobbies, or even fun activities) and help their children visualize the steps needed to achieve those goals. They reinforce their children's efforts in a task rather than the result and teach and model a love of challenge and perseverance in the face of difficulties.

7. Quality time

They Spend quality time as a family every day! You cannot afford to make being too busy and hustling a sentence that affects your family’s bonding! Spend time praying, talking, having fun, playing board games, have meals together! Make it a priority to spend quality time doing what you enjoy as a family. Additionally, create some family traditions and rituals that encourage bonding.

8. They Help their child identify his or her feelings and validate them.

If the child can't identify his feelings, how is he supposed to monitor them or read the feelings of others?  So They Let their children experience their feelings. They Encourage them to express how they feel (angry, frustrated, sad, excited, scared, etc.) about things going on in their life or even in their interaction with you.

Emotionally intelligent parents  Help their children to identify or label the feelings if they can't name them. Then they make sure to validate their feelings once they've expressed them. For example, you can use clarifying statements such as, "I can see that you're struggling with some feelings. I can only guess what you're feeling but from the outside it looks like it might be sadness. Is that what you are feeling?" This type of response invites your child to go inside, label the emotion and invites them to talk. The more practice you give your child, the better they will be able to identify and make sense of their feelings.

Sources:

.psychologytoday.com/6-things-emotionally-intelligent-parents-do-differently