How To Give Children A Good Emotional Education

You can teach your children to only cross the street when the traffic light is green, to take care of their pets, to read books and to multiply numbers and even to separate the garbage at home. But how do you give them a good emotional upbringing?

For example, can you also teach them to express their feelings ? To say the things they feel before locking themselves in a room and slamming the door?

Education is not just filling an empty mind with knowledge and gathering information. Raising your children also means helping them learn how to be happy in this complicated world, while also helping others to be happy.

It is important that you teach your children good values ​​and norms and give them a good emotional upbringing.

Schools have not introduced this subject in their curriculum. So it’s important that you emotionally educate them yourself from a young age, in the way we’ll teach you in this article.

How do you develop your child’s emotional education?

A child’s education starts from day one, when they are born. Education creates love, hugs, sweet words and habits. It happens during feeding, sleeping and the smile you try to get your child to imitate.

Education is the voice that encourages and supports them, makes them feel safe with every step they take, the reinforcement that makes them feel brave after they fall – this is all part of emotional education.

The real adventure begins at the age of eight. Around this time, children begin to discover how the world works and who they are.  They have already learned what justice is and what is right and wrong. From this point on, they continue to develop their personalities and interests.

They will explore the world with a great curiosity, where you are the key to give support, ensure their autonomy and give them love every day.

Here are the dimensions you should encourage as part of your child’s emotional education.

1. Self-awareness

Children have to grow up to get the best out of themselves. What does that mean? They need to get to know their capabilities and limits. Teach them the value of doing things for themselves and being autonomous so they can see what they are capable of, what they are good at, and where they have a chance to make mistakes.

Don’t be too protective, because that will not teach them responsibilities and will not give them good self-confidence. Let them grow and support them every step of the way. Don’t punish them when they make mistakes – instead teach them how to do better.

2. Give Them Responsibilities

An emotionally mature person is responsible for himself. These are individuals who do not depend on others to do things for them and who have faith in their own abilities.

As your kids get older, give them more responsibilities. They must learn that life is not about rights and freedom, but that we are all responsible for our actions, so that we are truly free.

3. Learn to be happy and accept frustration

From an early age, children need to learn that they can’t get everything they want. Every time they get a negative reaction from you, they don’t have to react like the world is ending.

Here’s an example: Your eight-year-old son asks if you want to buy him a cell phone. Of course he’s way too young for that, so you talk to him about it and expect him to understand.

If he throws a tantrum and starts hitting the furniture and yelling, he hasn’t learned to accept frustration. In the long run this can cause a lot of trouble, but if you manage this well you can explain the situation calmly and reasonably.

4. The importance of the “public interest” and “win-win”

Life is not an island to which we travel alone. We live in a society among other people who are part of our daily lives, with whom we develop bonds and with whom we grow emotionally as a society.

What does that mean? To succeed with your children’s emotional education, you need to work on the following aspects:

• Encourage empathy so that they recognize emotions in others,  such as grandparents, siblings, friends…

• Help them understand that if they do something wrong, it affects other people too. If they strive to be respectful, understanding and make other people happy, then everyone “wins”. If they smile at someone, they will likely get a smile back. Positive emotions are always the most powerful.
• It’s also important that you make sure your kids learn to be happy with themselves – they need hobbies that they enjoy and they need to do new things that they learn from. At the same time, they will learn that love for oneself is a powerful shield. With a good dose of confidence and acceptance of their physical and emotional selves, they will be better able to love others.

Start putting these tips into practice today and see how much success you have with your children’s emotional education.