10 Exercises to develop emotional intelligence in our children

If the physical, tangible world can be a tremendously complex place, the emotional world—of feelings, impossible to touch—can turn out to be impractical if we are not prepared to face it. A world that is really difficult for adults to control – with their background, experience and knowledge – can be even more complicated for children if they don’t know how to channel their emotions and identify them at the right time.

Early and timely learning of emotions and emotional intelligence by our children can facilitate the process. That’s why the awesome.club offers a series of activities to work on these aspects with children.

The benefits of reading at all ages are well known, and it can be a very valuable tool when it comes to emotional learning. At an early age, choosing an appropriate book about the emotion we are working on can help us to make the child visualize it, seeing it reflected in another way, without losing the fun present in books.

Reading for this purpose offers many benefits:

internalizing and learning a new emotion and what it involves; empathy; knowledge to be able to identify and differentiate it.

All of this can only be achieved by carefully reading the story, but if we want to dig deeper, we can always ask questions about emotion-oriented narratives. For example: “What do you think the character should feel?”, “Why do you think he feels that way?” or “How would you feel?”

This activity is the most practical and requires greater involvement and understanding of emotions, as otherwise it would be difficult to represent them correctly. The little ones should act out a short story, with the characters they choose (dolls, stuffed animals or another one of their choice). The emotion and the place will be defined by the roll of two dice, which we can make ourselves (we will only need paper, scissors, glue and a pen, to write the emotions on one dice, and the places on the other, on the different faces).

In this way, we will consolidate and internalize your knowledge about the worked emotion, developing your imagination and inventiveness for the unfolding of the story and your language capacity. In addition to all these benefits, fun is guaranteed.

Most children like to draw, so this means of learning can be extremely interesting and useful for them. It’s simple, just ask the child to reflect on his face different emotions, while looking at himself in a mirror, and draw on paper in the way and with the colors he prefers. We can also ask you to draw what you identify or relate to joy, sadness, fear and other emotions; then we will know exactly what each of these feelings means to her and what she associates them with.

When drawing, we will not only work on the recognition and learning of emotions, but, at the same time, we will develop the child’s creativity and skills.

Music is a great way to express emotions and also to experience them, so we can use it, associated with painting, to work on this aspect with the little ones. The proposal is to offer the children some musical pieces and ask them to paint what they feel, that is, the emotions experienced with the music. In this way, children will freely explore the world of emotions and reflect them in their own way and according to their own vision of the world and life.

Even in adulthood, managing some emotions and dealing with them can be really complex, and for children much more difficult, as they still don’t have enough knowledge and experience. This activity, known as the “Positive Discipline Options Wheel” will help us in these situations. It consists of making a wheel or roulette wheel, which we will divide into parts, and in each of them we will put one of the ways in which the child can act when he is angry, frustrated or sad (we will ask the little one about the possible ways to act, in a moment when you are calm, and from there we will analyze the possible reactions). In this way, when the child experiences some emotion or negative feeling that moves him, he can spin this wheel and act according to what comes out.

Creating or creating a dictionary of emotions, or “emotional” with our children, can help them to recognize and identify emotions in themselves and expand their vocabulary. The activity is simple and consists of looking together, in magazines or on the Internet, for photographs that represent a certain emotion. We must cut out the images found, paste them on paper and write the name of the emotion next to them, in large letters. In addition, we can take the opportunity to talk and deepen a little more about the one we have just found.

Another dynamic feature that can be fun for the whole family is movies with a clear message and feelings. With some age-appropriate films for our little ones, they can see the emotions represented and, at the end of the projection, we can ask questions about the emotional teaching left by the story they have just seen.

The exercise is very similar to the traditional game of guessing the name of the film, the profession or the animal, however, in this case, we will substitute everything for the representation of feelings. To be able to play, we will make cards on which we will write different emotions (we can put them from basic to more complex ones) and we will put them face down. While someone tries to represent the emotion he has picked up, using mime, the others will try to guess it.

This is a fun game and a great activity for learning emotions, recognizing them and encouraging family life.

Just as adults sometimes need to stop and take a deep breath, children can feel the same need. The ability to calm down or relax in times of great emotional charge takes practice, and the same goes for little ones; therefore, you need to teach them to stop, breathe deeply (properly), and calm down. For children, it will be easier if they do some movement, but there are several exercises recommended for children that will help them learn to control their emotions on their own, such as yoga or meditation.

We are going to prepare a recipe with our children and, for this, we will choose the ingredients and quantities necessary to achieve happiness, as if we were selecting the ingredients to prepare a delicious dish. In this way, the little one will learn to identify those feelings and emotions that are fundamental for himself and for others, learning to prioritize them and get to know himself better.

How do you handle emotions with your children? Why do you consider it essential to work on these aspects with children?