Family units can be tough. Resolving conflict, understanding one another, and growing a bond between parent and child is sometimes easier said than done. This is where emotional intelligence comes into play. It is through our ability to understand our own feelings and have empathy toward the feelings of those around us, that relationships can prosper.
In this article, we will discuss what emotional intelligence is and how children and adults can get better at it. It is a skill, but one that through patience and practice can easily be understood and developed.
Jump to Sections:
- What is Emotional Intelligence?
- Improving Emotional Intelligence in Adults
- Benefits of Emotional Intelligence for Families
- Our Take
- Sources and Further Reading
What is Emotional Intelligence?
The ability to comprehend, control, and influence both your own emotions as well as those of those around you is known as emotional intelligence.
Coined by researchers in the 1990s, emotional intelligence has swept through both business and home cultures. Many companies now consider emotional intelligence, or “EI”, as a peer to IQ. This just goes to show that a large number of professionals take emotional intelligence pretty seriously.
5 Key Factors of Emotional Intelligence
What makes up emotional intelligence? Is it just our ability to remain calm and patient? Or is it just our ability to notice someone having a bad day?
Well, technically it is all of those things and then some. A consensus on the subject is that there are 5 pillars to emotional intelligence. They are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Your ability to do not one of these but all is how your emotional intelligence can be measured. That is not to say that you must be a pro at all 5, but rather learn to balance all of them and know which ones you need to work on. It is a constant battle and a skill that requires time and effort.
Here is a quick dive into each one of these factors.
Self-awareness
Being self-aware means that, at least most of the time, you know exactly how you are feeling or thinking about a certain subject, action, or event. This includes understanding your strengths and weakness. With that, you also know how to better yourself. However, self-awareness does not necessarily mean that you take the necessary steps toward growth.
Based on a study conducted between 2013 and 2018, about 85 to 90 percent of people think that they are self-aware. That same study showed that only about 10 percent actually are.
Tasha Eurich, M.D., Ph.D. Organizational Psychology
Self-regulation
People that display self-regulation can control their emotions. Where self-awareness is just the acknowledgment of emotions, regulation is the control. This can be quite handy in stressful or new situations where an outcome has never been experienced or is consequential.
This is extremely important in parenting, as children tend to push their buttons daily. Being in control of our emotions can mean the difference between calmly approaching our child’s questions and mistakes to incorrectly raising our voice and saying things that are not constructive. Self-regulation allows us to be responsive versus reactive.
While a response is designed to produce a positive or negative outcome, a reaction may have either a positive or negative outcome. Responding is emotional intelligence; reacting is emotional.
Motivation
This factor of emotional intelligence holds no secret or complex meaning. It is simply, are you motivated enough to be better? If you are self-aware, but not self-regulated, will you work on yourself to control your emotions more?
This is important for parents. We are the mentors and examples for our children. If you have a child who needs to work on their emotions, social skills, or any other skill, how are we setting the example? Showing them that we are working on our own emotions and that we are motivated to become better versions of ourselves says more than any “lesson” we give them.
Empathy
Here we are. One of the most important life lessons you can probably teach a child is empathy. If you do not know what empathy is, you have come to the right place.
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand someone else’s situation and feelings and in turn, use that to guide our actions and interactions with them. “Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” is the age-old saying. I love that saying, but it leaves out the second part- the interaction.
How does this matter to parents? Your children are growing up differently than you did. Your child is unique and sees things differently than you. Empathy allows us to understand their perspective and reassure, teach, correct, and foster a better childhood for them.
Social Skills
Social skills, or communication skills, are a must-have in the scope of emotional intelligence. It does us no good if we can understand emotion but cannot converse with someone about it. If you are good at deciphering why your child is upset but have no effective way of communicating with them, you will not make any progress.
People who have great social skills are masters at handling both good and bad topics in conversation. They also adapt well to change and resolve conflicts when they arise. In an adult circle, these people lead the conversations and usually moderate them when others get out of hand.
Think about all of those qualities that we have talked about and how they all go hand in hand. All of them working together are what makes up a strong emotional intelligence. Of course, it is okay to struggle with one or two. Knowing which ones you are weak at is a great start to getting better at them.
How can we, as adults and parents, improve our emotional intelligence and what we instill in our children?
Becoming a More Emotionally Intelligent Parent
Being a parent can be challenging. It can also be rewarding. It takes skill to be able to balance our own lives and also ensure that we help develop our children at the same time. This isn’t your standard multitasking. Mental and emotional development is some serious stuff.
So, how do we do this? We do this through (1) having a grasp on our own feelings and emotions and (2) understanding and empathizing with our children. As we started before, all of this is emotional intelligence.
There are a few different ways to grow as an emotionally intelligent parent.
Self Care
It is hard to support the growth of others when our own plate is empty.
What that quote means is that it can be hard to take care of other people, especially our children, if we are not taking care of ourselves. That may seem like a simple concept, but parenting takes a lot out of us. A lack of sleep, proper diet, alone time, and a neglected relationship with your spouse can all happen pretty quickly when you have children. Taking care of ourselves is a must.
Parents that are rested and happy are way more likely to be patient and understanding with their children.
Ask your spouse to help you out or share the workload if you are feeling tired and worn out. We all need a reprieve now and then. Parents even more so. Find ways for you to exercise, eat better, relax, and rest. It can make a world of difference.
Focus on Bonding
To be emotionally intelligent when it comes to others, you need to have a bond or connection with them. Children are no exception. They require it even more.
Our modern lives as parents and their continuously evolving pressures and distractions, make it easy to feel disconnected. A study in 2020 from the AAP, showed that 6 out of 10 children feel their parents do not understand them and do not spend more than a few hours a week with them. Not saying you are guilty of this, but as a collective unit, we have to do better as parents. The entire point of this website is to grow a generation of fathers (parents in general) that are more involved and engaged with their children.
Bonding can build trust and engagement between children and their parents. Creating daily routines or events is a great way to start.
This does not have to be an overly thought-out process either. It just needs to be quality time spent with your children. Watching a movie, playing video games, going for a walk, or anything else you can think of are great ideas. If you enjoy it and they enjoy it, that is a win in my book.
Related Article: 10 Bonding Activities to Try With Your Child
Gain Perspective
It is easy to approach a situation from our perspective. I am not saying that we shouldn’t. We should, however, at the very least try to gain the other person’s perspective. Remember that little word from earlier- empathy. It plays a big role here.
When your child, or even your spouse, does something wrong or forgets to do something completely, be slow to anger. Try to see why they forgot or why they messed it up. There are a ton of different variables for why someone does something. Yours may differ from theirs.
For children, this is especially important. Gaining perspective and seeing things from their point of view can tell us a lot. Are they overwhelmed? Are they struggling with certain skills? The list goes on.
Discipline to Teach
Teaching your child what you expect of them is part of discipline. Emotionally intelligent parents place a strong emphasis on respectfully establishing limits and boundaries as well as the repercussions of crossing them. They don’t punish strictly by disciplining. These parents are aware of the important roles that consistency and encouragement play in helping kids adhere to limits and rules. They also realize that while yelling, ignoring, or punishing children may produce the desired results in the short term, doing so prevents kids from developing the skills they need to control their behavior in the long run.
Related Article: Parenting Styles Explained
Instill Values
It can be hard to teach children to be more honest, tidy, patient, and so forth. They do not understand why they need to and will usually disregard those traits because of it. This is where instilling values can have a major benefit.
Values are the beliefs that each of us holds near and dear to our hearts. With that being said, to teach our children values we must be an example of the values we wish them to care about. It can be pretty hard to teach cleanliness to your child when we, as parents, are always messy. That won’t make sense to them. There is no physical example to see there.
Be an example of the values you wish to instill in your child and constantly show them the positive outcomes of those values. Over time they will begin to associate, for example, “honesty”, with being something they need to be. Children want to be more like their parents than they may let on. Use that to your advantage!
To see some research on family and emotional intelligence, I highly recommend checking out this paper from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Benefits of Emotional Intelligence for Families
Families that show emotional intelligence are stronger, closer, and more receptive to faults and shortcomings in one another. Parents that show emotional intelligence are more patient, usually less stressed, and have an understanding of their child that other parents only dream of. They listen.
Emotional intelligence is a cornerstone in parenting and probably a skill that most often gets overlooked.
Raising children to be patient and understanding is something they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. It is also something I know that most adults, including myself, need to work on daily. Children who are more emotionally intelligent have much better social interactions, are more honest in communication, and understand the value of empathy that extends from the home to school and beyond.
Our Take
There are a ton of articles on this website that I would personally deem necessary for parents. This one would be at the top when it comes to family health and growth. Emotional intelligence is very important for parents and children and can have lasting, positive effects if utilized correctly.
From the way we treat ourselves to the way we empathize with those around us, emotional intelligence should be a priority. Sadly, in most households, it is not. We can change that. Each day we can choose to discipline to teach and not to punish, to see things from another’s perspective, and to truly care about what other people are dealing with. We also need to set an example for our children when it comes to all of these things and with them, values.
I will be honest I knew about emotional intelligence, but I had no idea about the complexity and absolute need for it in families. Researching this has opened my eyes a lot. I hope that it has for you as well. If you read this entire article or even just clicked on it, thank you. Your continued support and positive feedback are such an inspiration. Please be sure to check out our related articles and sources for some great information.
Sources
All of the information in this article on emotional intelligence was thoroughly researched and vetted from over 10 sources. These sources are compiled from doctoral journals, psychiatrists’ inputs, and numerous studies.
“Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health in the Family” by M. T. Sanchez-Nunez and J. M. Latorre (2020 Research Journal from the National Library of Medicine)
“Assessment of Emotional Intelligence in the Family” by J. M. Latorre (2012 Journal from Sage)
“Influence of Family Environment on Emotional Intelligence Among Youth” by James Robert and S. Kadhiravan (2022 Jonral from Research Gate)
“Emotional Intelligence: Achieving Academic and Career Success” by Darwin Nelson and Gary Low (2010 Scholarly Journal from Texas A&M)
“Emotional Intelligence: Its Importance to HE Professional Service Teams” by A. Coleman and A. Ali (2020 Scholarly Journal from Sage)
“Change Leadership: The Role of Emotional Intelligence” by Mohammed Issah (2018 Scholarly Journal from DOI.org)
“Emotional Intelligence: Predictor Of Wellbeing, Quality of Life, and Psychological Empowerment” by Leila Karimi (2021 Scholarly Journal from BMC Psychology)
“The Measurement of Emotional Intelligence” by P. Connor, A. Hill, M. Kaya, and B. Martin (2019 Scholarly Journal from Frontiers in Psychology)
“Emotional Intelligence” by P. Salovey and J. D. Mayer (1990 Research Journal from Yale University)
“Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Effectiveness” by K. Srivastava (2013 Research Journal from the National Library of Medicine)
“Can Emotional Intelligence Be Improved?” by R. Gilar-Corbi, T. Pozo-Rico, and B. Sanchez (2019 Research Journal from the Spanish Ministry of Economy)
Further Reading
“Emotional Intelligence” by Barrett Whitener and Daniel Goleman, Ph. D.
“Emotional Intelligence: For a Better Life” by Brandon Goleman
