As soon as many parents hear their children crying, they will instinctively be nervous and their hearts will beat faster. They will immediately enter the [fire extinguishing mode] and wish to coax the baby well.
Although parents are easy to explode when their children lose their temper, in fact, this is the key time to cultivate emotional intelligence.
Why do you say that? We invited 8 years of kindergarten experience and countless Chang Run teachers to analyze in detail.
EQ mainly includes the ability to deal with one’s own emotions, the ability to effectively identify other people’s emotions, and the ability to guide one’s next actions.
Children over one year old begin to have self-awareness and gradually develop various emotions. Children are not good at expressing themselves and can only express them by crying and losing their temper. This is an excellent time for parents to cultivate their emotional intelligence.
If parents realize that this is well guided, their children’s emotional management ability will become stronger. On the contrary, if parents blindly let their children [don’t cry], it will cause obstacles to their children’s emotional cognition.
To help children cultivate emotional intelligence, we must do these three things.
Allow children to cry and give them the right to release their emotions.
The reason why the child cries is because there are negative emotions. Nine times out of ten it is useless to persuade the child [stop crying] [don’t lose his temper] at this time.
As a child under the age of three, when I want to play in the park, I will be sad to hear my mother say that she is going home. When I want to wear a red skirt, I will be sad to find that I can’t wash it today.
These emotions are the most normal and instinctive reactions of children. Just release them. Trying to block it is like putting rocks on the coast, which can only make the waves bigger (more intense).
If the child is stopped from crying, the child will still think that his parents do not care about himself and do not love himself.
The child’s mood cannot be correctly released for a long time, and his temper is getting more and more urgent. Everything needs to be satisfied immediately, otherwise he will lose his temper.
In the face of children’s crying, one must identify with children’s negative emotions. Only by experiencing negative emotions can children learn emotional management, which is just like learning to swim only by jumping into the water.
It is really important to give children the right to cry.
Name emotions so that children can recognize different emotions.
There are hundreds of kinds of people’s emotions, [joys and sorrows] are only the simplest division. Sadness, anger and injustice may all have the same physical reaction to the child (crying, shouting and even rolling). In fact, he does not know what is wrong with himself, [just feeling sad and crying].
At this time, it is very important to teach children what is wrong with them and to name their emotions.
Mom didn’t listen to you. You are very angry now, aren’t you?
I know you are disappointed that you can’t wear a red skirt today. It is your favorite skirt.
I know you are very wronged, this feeling is very uncomfortable.
When the child cries and loses his temper, gently retell the child’s feelings and tell him [this feeling is called XX].
You have said too much, and the child will clearly tell you [I am very angry] [I am very sad] when he can fully express himself.
Empathy and companionship guide children to carry out emotional management.
Some children can calm down quickly after understanding that their emotions are what, but some children are difficult to calm down and even get more and more excited. This is normal, because they also don’t like their emotional self and don’t know what to do with their bad emotions.
Of course, it is still very difficult for children to learn to deal with their emotions reasonably and effectively (many of us adults cannot do it). For children at this stage, accepting their emotions and learning to live in peace with emotions are the key to emotional management.
At this time, parental empathy and companionship “are especially important.
For example, when a child wants to eat snacks, the snacks fall to the ground and the child cries-
The baby’s snack fell to the ground and it was very sad not to eat it, wasn’t it?
It doesn’t matter, I would be sad if I were you.
If you want to cry, cry. Mom will accompany you.
At this time, the child will feel understood and feel [it is normal for me to do this], then he will feel safe and his mood will gradually calm down.
You have said a lot. In the future, when children see others sad, they will understand and empathize in the same way, and their emotional intelligence will improve.
The company of [empathy] is very important. Never say [you must be disappointed, you can cry for a while], but act while saying [there is something what can cry] and walk away.
Only by giving company can the child feel that you really understand him. You can accompany him and comfort him silently with body language, such as looking at his eyes, touching his back, or demonstrating deep breathing.
It may take him 5 ~ 10 minutes to completely calm down, which is a valuable opportunity for him to learn emotional management.
When the child calms down, he has accumulated an emotional management experience from anger to calmness. When he encounters unhappy things later, he can face them more confidently and calmly.
Children’s emotional management is not developed overnight and requires parents to have a lot of patience.
The child is too young to cry. What should I do if I don’t understand? What if the child doesn’t listen to anything when crying?
Then let the child cry.
You can just accompany him, give him a hug and wait for the child to calm down.
Let him know, [I can cry, it’s okay, my parents will always accompany me].