Building your child’s emotional intelligence will support their academic learning. We can do this in our day to day interactions with them, it doesn’t need to take up lots of our time. Setting up their emotional patterns empowers them. Learning how to listen to their emotions and take effective action prevents them from staying in the emotion especially negative emotions like anxiety or anger. When we learn to interrupt the pattern the negative emotion can serve them as an indicator in their life to what they want

Parents often ask me, how young should I start with building my child’s emotional intelligence, and I say the earlier the better. Babies as young as one and a half years old may not have the verbal skills, but they are already working out what works with you and what doesn’t. Their brains are already working out what they need and how to get it. If we as parent understand how to direct this our children will develop healthy patterns to meet their needs effectively.

Parenting is the one job that we are least prepared for in life. There are so many books we can read but the reality is that each child and each parent is different. What works for one child does not necessarily work for another. Building your child’s perceptions of life has a lot more influence on their potential than just focusing on a physical result, like learning a skill at school, or teaching them manners for example. While these are important, building their perceptions influences their sense of self which is the building block for that learning.

Building your child’s emotional intelligence will support their academic learning. We can do this in our day to day interactions with them, it doesn’t need to take up lots of our time. Setting up their emotional patterns empowers them. Learning how to listen to their emotions and take effective action prevents them from staying in the emotion especially negative emotions like anxiety or anger. When we learn to interrupt the pattern the negative emotion can serve them as an indicator in their life to what they want.

The way we discipline our child each day determines how they develop their sense of accountability and responsibility. This is more important than the specific result in the moment. So often our main focus is on managing the behaviour in the moment, but when we focus on developing their thinking patterns and understanding the why behind their behaviour we get long term results.