Posted on 12/01/2021
Regardless of how impacted you have been or your family has been by the pandemic, there's probably been a measure of trauma your children have experienced as a result. And try as you might, you won't always be able to protect them from adverse experiences. But what you can do is help equip them to handle these things. In another series, we discussed how strengthening executive skills can play a role. Now in this one, we've looked at ways to particularly deal with trauma, starting with naming and categorizing difficulties, validating and discussing difficult emotions, and making space to spend quality time together. Now we'll talk about some emotionally healthy next steps.
Dealing with Strong Emotions
Emotional health is not about the presence or absence of strong emotions, but the ability to express them. With maturity and developmental changes, our children can grow to be able to calmly verbalize their feelings; but in the meantime, you aren't alone if you can relate to the experience common among parents that "when their strong emotions come flooding out it feels annoying at best and abrasive at worst, disrupting us in our high stress/low sleep parental existence." This description does not actually mean our children aren't on the road to becoming emotionally healthy; in fact, it can be a very good sign. Emotions are part of being human, and not one of us is at our best and most winsome when we're experiencing big emotions. The reason psychologists suggest that most of us are so uncomfortable with our children's expressions of their own emotions is that we never learned how to properly deal with our own. Ouch.
And don't worry: if this hits home, it's not because your family was all that different from other families. It has been a cultural norm for families to focus on survival and productivity, leaving little room for focusing on emotional intelligence. This skill set includes both growing in awareness of our emotions and developing healthy coping mechanisms.
Discerning the Relevance of Emotional Intelligence
Like executive skills, emotional intelligence will be apparent in a variety of situations and circumstances throughout your child's life. There is also some overlap between the two. From communicating and empathizing with others to regulating emotions and making decisions, emotional intelligence has ramifications for all kinds of coping and social skills.
As child therapist Angela Pruess explains, "When we equip our child to properly handle both the highs and the lows inherent in life, we raise resilient children who can successfully manage themselves in a variety of environments." With the growing percentage of clinical levels of depression (12.8%) and anxiety (31.9%) among adolescents, the stakes could not be higher; maybe emotional intelligence is actually a survival skill after all. Your child's emotional intelligence is not only an important life skill that will impact his or her mental health and relationships, but it is also a significant factor in today's workplace.
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