By Margaret Altman
Raising children to be resilient, empathic and motivated is a timeless issue. However, in these anxious and distracting times, parents and teachers are actively looking for new and well-researched ways of helping their youngsters become emotionally healthy.
Margaret Altman, the author of “Developing Your Child’s Emotional Intelligence,” is a specialist in the field of child development. Her goal is to make her knowledge and experience available for parents, teachers and any child-involved individual.
Parents of infants and young children are demonstrating a huge, sustained interest in finding ways to protect their children from crippling emotional disorders that are on the rise and learning how to enhance their children’s ability to cope with the stresses and strains in today’s every day environment.
Parental concerns have been heightened by startling new research that points to: ■Increases in cases of attention and concentration disorders within the young child population. ■Two fold rise in cases of Autism, the devastating emotional disorder. ■Escalating incidences of impulsive, explosive child behaviors. ■Earlier use of drugs and alcohol (now in the elementary school population).
In the new and dynamic field of “Developmental Emotional Intelligence,” we find answers to the urgent questions that parents ask about how and when to help young children begin to strengthen the key abilities to pay attention, to concentrate, to manage their emotions, to delay impulsive behavior and to relate to others in meaningful ways.
Through extensive research and experience, we have found that the steps parents can take to strengthen their youngster’s abilities begin during infancy. The progress that the baby shows can be seen by the parents in behaviors that are simple, subtle and yet incredibly powerful. We call these behaviors milestones in the development of emotional intelligence before the child is 3 years old.
Each and every milestone will enable the young child to focus in school, to manage his emotions and behavior and to form strong and lasting relationships.
What more could any parent ask for?
QUESTION: I have a child who is 2 years old. I have been hearing a lot about emotional intelligence and how important it is for parents to build the child’s abilities in this area. At what age should I be concerned about my child’s emotional intelligence?
ANSWER: Emotional intelligence is not only for adults or for teenagers. We find that infants and young children are beginning to develop the skills that lead to emotional intelligence. Most of these skills are taught by parents and learned by children before the age of 3. With these vital skills, the child will be better able to pay attention and concentrate in school, to control impulsive behavior and to get along with peers.
At the age of 2, children are learning skills that enable them to express negative as well as positive emotions in appropriate ways. This is an important step in the development of emotional intelligence and it empowers children to cope with emotional situations and challenges throughout their lives. As you know, the “terrible twos” is a challenging period. As parents, it’s easier and more fun to join with the child in expressing positive emotions. The feelings of anger, fear or loneliness are even hard for grown ups to manage. Two year olds have to learn how to express these feelings without all of the words and techniques that grown ups have and it’s not easy. It is important that parents teach the child how to express the negative emotions at this age. What you don’t want is to see your child having temper tantrums and being unable to express his emotions and control his impulsive behavior at the age of 10 or 18.
Suggestions from the experts in Developmental Emotional Intelligence: ■Take the time to review the earlier steps in developing emotional intelligence. One of the most important first steps is to encourage your child to share emotional experiences with you. Let your youngster show you or tell you what is interesting for him and join the child in expressing your interest. ■Take a look at the times when your child does a great job of expressing his needs and his positive or negative feelings. Encourage these behaviors as warmly as possible. ■Be a role model of expressing anger, fear and other negative emotions in appropriate ways. ■For kids who are talking at 2 years old, you can teach easy ways to express the difficult feelings — words like sad, mad, scared and tired. ■For late talkers, make tasks simple so that they are not frustrated by not being able to verbally express feelings. Encourage them when they express feelings in face expressions like smiling, frowning, etc. ■When your child has a tantrum, remember that he or she is the 2-year-old and don’t join in by becoming upset. Wait until you are calm before deciding how to deal with the situation. It is usually effective to have a simple and direct plan for tantrums and share it with the child after the first explosion. You can remove the child from the situation, wait until he has quieted down and then implement the plan. “Now we are going home because you got out of control and that is not a good thing in a store.” ■For children who tantrum often it is useful to make sure that you expose the child to stimulating situations slowly and carefully, try to expose the child when he or she is not tired and not hungry. Remember that your child does not have all of the skills with which to express emotions and expect some upsets.
Tip of the Week: The temper tantrum is not only a behavior of 2 year olds. Adolescents and adults who continue to tantrum are at risk for life failures. Impulsive outbursts are a sign that they have not learned the skills of emotional intelligence. (Margaret Altman is the author of Developing Your Child’s Emotional Intelligence. To reach her, e-mail to).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 15, 2003. Read the original PDF.