Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence: Type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer)
Primary emotions – fear, anger, surprise, happiness, disgust, sadness
Secondary or social emotions – embarrassment, jealousy and guilt
Social Intelligence – ability to perceive one's own and others' internal states, motives and behaviours, and to act toward them optimally on the basis of that information
Parents and adults need to actively teach emotional intelligence skills. Young kids are like sponges, soaking up everything around them — so the younger we teach them, the better!
Emotional intelligence skills can be taught through modeling, reading stories in which characters display good emotional intelligence, working with kids to overcome challenging situations, using consequence-based discipline techniques, and giving thorough explanations (Kanoy, 2010)
Role Parents Play
- Parents encourage and reinforce self-conscious emotions
- Vary from culture to culture
- Individualistic cultures (North America)
E.g., Taught to feel pride for personal achievements
- Collectivist Cultures (Eastern Culture)
E.g., Violating cultural standards is connected to shame
Emotional Self-Regulation
- Strategies we use to adjust the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to a comfortable level to achieve our goals
E.g., decide not to see a scary movie, suppress anger toward a friend
During Middle Childhood:
-Children know the difference between feeling and expressing emotions and are able to reflect on their emotions internally
Age 10
-Problem centered coping
-Appraise situation and difficulty and decide what to do
-Emotion centered coping (internal/ private)
-About controlling distress when can’t control outcome
Social Referencing
-Use another persons’ emotions to understand an uncertain situation
-Is important because it teaches a child how to react to many everyday events
-Moves beyond reacting to anothers emotions
-Start to understand meaning behind emotions
Empathy
-To take another person’s emotional perspective (understanding) E.g., to feel with that person
Sympathy
-Feelings of concern for another person’s problems (pity)
Empathy Development in Childhood and Beyond
-Ability to empathize general life conditions E.g., people who are poor
Emotional Intelligence can be seen in classrooms where the arts are explored and given value (dance, drama, music and visual art)
Activity:
Fairy Tale Charades
Put the names of some fairy tales in a hat. Simple ones such as "The Three Little Pigs" or "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" will work best. Draw a fairy tale at random, and then assign children to act out the characters in the tale as a skit without words. Children should use their bodies as well as their faces to portray the feelings of each character, showing, for example, how the three pigs behave when the wolf begins to blow down their houses. When the tale is complete, discuss what emotion each actor intended to portray versus what the audience perceived for each fairy tale
Children must rely on their dramatic skills and facial expressions to display to the audience how characters are feeling and thinking during the story.
Primary emotions – fear, anger, surprise, happiness, disgust, sadness
Secondary or social emotions – embarrassment, jealousy and guilt
Social Intelligence – ability to perceive one's own and others' internal states, motives and behaviours, and to act toward them optimally on the basis of that information
Parents and adults need to actively teach emotional intelligence skills. Young kids are like sponges, soaking up everything around them — so the younger we teach them, the better!
Emotional intelligence skills can be taught through modeling, reading stories in which characters display good emotional intelligence, working with kids to overcome challenging situations, using consequence-based discipline techniques, and giving thorough explanations (Kanoy, 2010)
Role Parents Play
- Parents encourage and reinforce self-conscious emotions
- Vary from culture to culture
- Individualistic cultures (North America)
E.g., Taught to feel pride for personal achievements
- Collectivist Cultures (Eastern Culture)
E.g., Violating cultural standards is connected to shame
Emotional Self-Regulation
- Strategies we use to adjust the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to a comfortable level to achieve our goals
E.g., decide not to see a scary movie, suppress anger toward a friend
During Middle Childhood:
-Children know the difference between feeling and expressing emotions and are able to reflect on their emotions internally
Age 10
-Problem centered coping
-Appraise situation and difficulty and decide what to do
-Emotion centered coping (internal/ private)
-About controlling distress when can’t control outcome
Social Referencing
-Use another persons’ emotions to understand an uncertain situation
-Is important because it teaches a child how to react to many everyday events
-Moves beyond reacting to anothers emotions
-Start to understand meaning behind emotions
Empathy
-To take another person’s emotional perspective (understanding) E.g., to feel with that person
Sympathy
-Feelings of concern for another person’s problems (pity)
Empathy Development in Childhood and Beyond
-Ability to empathize general life conditions E.g., people who are poor
Emotional Intelligence can be seen in classrooms where the arts are explored and given value (dance, drama, music and visual art)
Activity:
Fairy Tale Charades
Put the names of some fairy tales in a hat. Simple ones such as "The Three Little Pigs" or "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" will work best. Draw a fairy tale at random, and then assign children to act out the characters in the tale as a skit without words. Children should use their bodies as well as their faces to portray the feelings of each character, showing, for example, how the three pigs behave when the wolf begins to blow down their houses. When the tale is complete, discuss what emotion each actor intended to portray versus what the audience perceived for each fairy tale
Children must rely on their dramatic skills and facial expressions to display to the audience how characters are feeling and thinking during the story.