How to improve children’s emotional education, in 15 key points

Childhood is a stage in which we also learn to manage emotions.

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

In order to get off to a good start in this endeavor to help them discover and enhance their emotions, I have taken the liberty of writing this practical guide.

1. A shared obligation

Parents, teachers, those who are both at the same time, and all adults without exception are responsible for ensuring that children receive the emotional education they deserve, so that they can acquire 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 the proper education and may -involuntarily- contribute a negative influence to the good purpose he/she intended.

2. There are no negative emotions

At the outset, 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, in the face of an emotion, there are positive reactions and specific behaviors that are negative for society and can lead to problems.

3. Emotional maturity in stages

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

Up to six months of age, the child only obeys sensory and motor stimuli (instinctive based) and is not aware of his emotions. From this age he can begin to differentiate his basic emotions with the help of adults. Until approximately three years of age, he is not able to change his behavior in a stable way based on emotions (intuitive capacity). And until he enters the operative stage, at approximately six years of age, he cannot apply "the use of reason" to his behaviors and learn to work in a team. From this age he learns to identify and name the basic emotions he experiences and can reflect on them and subject them to self-control. But the good management of derived emotions and feelings will not be able to be achieved 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 ahead, usually does not come before the age of sixteen: the emotional coming of age.

4. Love is not enough

A very common 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, indispensable. But they are not enough. They must be accompanied by a balanced emotional education. If parents overprotect through excessive permissiveness, or are authoritarian and too severe, or are uncontrolled and unpredictable, the emotional damage can seriously affect the personality of the future adult, despite the love received.

5. How to know if a child has emotional problems?

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

6. How to deal with their fears

Let's start with fear. 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 himself, to the dark, to the cold, to the heat, to the inclemency of nature, to get sick, to strangers, to authoritarian or hostile people, to be blamed for mom and dad arguing? The solution is to give them the security they need in an unequivocal manner.. 

Physical security against disease, hunger and all kinds of physical dangers. And emotional security. It is convenient that the parents repeat as many times as necessary that they loved 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 do not like what he does, but that he is loved without any doubts or objections. As the extraordinary psychopedagogue Rebeca Wild says: "If the child feels good, he doesn't misbehave".

7. How to deal with tantrums

Let's continue with anger. A child immersed in a tantrum can display spectacular energy. The causes of the tantrum can also be multiple: he has been refused a wish or a whim, a toy has been taken away, he has been scolded "unfairly", he has been ignored or not listened to, he has been beaten or humiliated and has not been able to defend himself... The support the child needs here is understanding.. 

Show him in no uncertain terms 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 belongingsThat we must get used to endure some frustrations in life; that we must look for new motivations and new expectations and not give up; that we must defend ourselves from injustices with calm and serenity; that we must avoid dangers 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 beloved person; for not being able to be with friends; for not having what the children around him have; for having lost father and mother... The right support is consolation. Show empathy for their loss, accompany them in their grief, offer help in coping with their loss, support them with distractions such as games and new motivations.

9. The power of play

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

10. How to deal with your embarrassment

One of the most potentially damaging emotions is embarrassment. Shame for 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 themselves; for having done something wrong; for having suffered physical or sexual abuse... The best help to overcome shame is to foster their self-esteem.

Repeat as many times as necessary that each person is unique and worth as much as anyone else.. Teach them to improve their problems or defects without stressing them. Help them to recognize their mistakes and overcome them. To teach him to socialize and to have friends that correspond to him. To gain his confidence so that he will share with us possible physical or sexual abuse.

11. Loss of self-esteem

It is necessary to avoid by all means that the child falls in loss of self-esteem.. Because this means that the child internalizes that he/she is useless and good for nothing; that he/she does not deserve to be loved; that it is natural to be ignored or despised; that it is logical to be mocked and humiliated.

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 type reaction, the adult will show serious affective dependencies; fear of sustaining intimate relationships; fear of speaking in public and being noticed; pathological insecurity; an inferiority complex. If there has been an aggressive type of reaction, the adult will show strong tendencies to tyranny, despotism, cruelty, egocentric narcissism, an exaggerated armor of false security.

12. Basic recommendations

It is worth paying attention to a number of recommendations:

• Attention should be paid to the child's age and not to put him/her in situations for which he/she lacks the necessary emotional maturity.
• Try to put yourself in the child's shoes and understand his reasons and motivations. Ask and listen to the child.
• It is useless to try to make the child reason when he is immersed in an emotional kidnapping, we must wait for him to calm down.
• We should never reproach him/her because he/she has experienced an emotion, only point out the negative behaviors that it has provoked and offer him/her the possible positive behaviors.
• We should avoid abstract speeches; we should use short sentences oriented to action. Do not apply denigrating, humiliating or offensive adjectives to their behavior.
• Lead by example. Do not be reluctant to show your own emotions, showing how they are under control.
• Recognize one's own mistakes and show what is being done to repair them.
• Among adults, avoid having conversations about 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 capable of understanding, but do not alter the truth with falsehoods.
• Under no circumstances allow the child to mock, humiliate, disrespect or treat any person or animal badly.
• Never apply any kind of violence (physical or verbal) or emotional blackmail.
• Do not want to buy their affection or indulgence with our weaknesses 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 addiction to solitary Tablet or PlayStation games.
• We must correctly manage motivation with rewards and inhibition with punishments.
• Both rewards and punishments must be proportional, fair and consistent. They must be exceptional but stable. Rewards must be affordable, punishments avoidable.
• Rewards must celebrate the triumph of previous effort. Punishments must involve real discomfort or effort.
• It is essential to warn before punishing and to explain the reasons for punishments.
• We must encourage their curiosity and foster their creativity. Do not block their 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 dialoguing with children.
• Always show them that you love them in a permanent and indestructible way.

13. Emotional wounds

It has been demonstrated that caregivers who apply severe punishments with coldness and authoritarianism, without affection towards the children, are more likely to be emotionally wounded.without affection towards the children, can provoke personality disorders in future adults: fanaticism for order, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, pathological insecurities, unhealthy perfectionism.

As Canadian writer Lise Bourbeau warns us, the five great emotional wounds that tend to leave their mark on a child's future are: rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal and injustice. The main motivation for 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 withstand long absences of his parents if he has irrefutable evidence that they love him and the people who take care of him frequently remind him of the memory and the hope of a reunion. Emotional security is more a matter of intensity than frequency..

15. We have all been children

To facilitate the understanding of the emotions and behaviors of the child, it is useful to remember that we were also children and that the child we were lives on inside us. We must recover it 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 their self-esteem, we will ensure that our children, our grandchildren, and all the children in our society achieve the emotional intelligence they deserve.

Bibliographical references:

• Borbeau, Lise. The five wounds that prevent one from 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, Rebeca. Freedom and limits. Love and respect. Herder, 2012.