How to teach emotional intelligence to children

Psychologist & Author Jeanne Segal, PhD, shares advice for parents on the best methods for teaching emotional intelligence to your children
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How to teach emotional intelligence to children

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The easiest way to teach our children to be more emotionally intelligent is to be emotionally intelligent ourselves. Now, if we become aware that we may not be as comfortable with our feelings and we are cued into recognizing that because we notice that we can’t stay focused and calm most of the time. If we’re not focused and calm, we are probably having some struggles with this subject. So we can learn ourselves. We can ourselves learn skills that enable us to be emotionally intelligent. I don’t think that it’s really possible to teach emotional intelligence to your child if you are mirroring a lack thereof. If you can’t behave in a way that is calm, and focused and emotionally connected, you can tell this child again and again, and expose it to different opportunities and video or this and that and the other, but I don’t think it sticks. Children are most influenced by the people around them, by their experience and they spend most of their time with their parents. And so what they see and what they experience with their parents is what sticks.

Psychologist & Author Jeanne Segal, PhD, shares advice for parents on the best methods for teaching emotional intelligence to your children

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Jeanne Segal, PhD

Psychologist & Author

Jeanne Segal is a mother and grandmother with an MA degree in psychology and PhD in sociology. She is an author whose books have been translated into 13 languages. Dr. Segal is the developer and content editor of Helpguide.org, a nonprofit website that helps people help themselves. Helpguide attracts over 1 million viewers a week and collaborates with the publishing arm of Harvard Medical School. One of the topics covered on the Helpguide.org website that is dearest to her heart is infant mental health.

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Transcription: 
The easiest way to teach our children to be more emotionally intelligent is to be emotionally intelligent ourselves. Now, if we become aware that we may not be as comfortable with our feelings and we are cued into recognizing that because we notice that we can’t stay focused and calm most of the time. If we’re not focused and calm, we are probably having some struggles with this subject. So we can learn ourselves. We can ourselves learn skills that enable us to be emotionally intelligent. I don’t think that it’s really possible to teach emotional intelligence to your child if you are mirroring a lack thereof. If you can’t behave in a way that is calm, and focused and emotionally connected, you can tell this child again and again, and expose it to different opportunities and video or this and that and the other, but I don’t think it sticks. Children are most influenced by the people around them, by their experience and they spend most of their time with their parents. And so what they see and what they experience with their parents is what sticks.