Toddler Week 12

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Your Toddler

Emotionally intelligent people are a pleasure to be with. They understand and are in control of their own emotions and have empathy for the emotions of others. For a child, it is never too early to encourage this important skill. In fact, the toddler years are the perfect time to start teaching kids to express their emotions in an appropriate way.  One of the characteristics of this development phase is a high level of developmental frustration. This means that your child may feel frustrated because he or she cannot talk yet or because he or she does not have the motor skills to do what others are doing.

To help you with this, here are some general ways by which you can incorporate emotional intelligence training into your children’s daily routine:

  • Reflect your children’s feelings. Even though your children may not yet be able to say, ‘I am angry!’ they are fully capable of experiencing anger. If you see that they are angry, reflect their emotions by saying in a soothing voice, ‘Ruby, I can see that you are very angry. Let’s ask George to give your doll back.’
  • Talk about your own emotions. When appropriate, tell your children how you feel about events that occur in your daily life. You can say, ‘Mommy is so happy about the new bud on the rose bush,’ or ‘I feel really sad that Daddy won’t be home for another two days.’
  • Show empathy for others. Your children will learn from your example more than anyone or anything else. In fact, they can absorb your actions more effectively than your words, so make sure that your child is given the chance to see how you reach out to others. For instance, you can show your toddler how you comfort his or her older brother who is crying.
  • Give your kids an emotional vocabulary. Talk about emotions often using simple words like happy, sad, angry and excited. Soon your children will have assimilated their meanings and will start using those words to express what they feel.                                                                                                                                                                                             

Encouraging emotional intelligence from an early age is a worthwhile investment in your children’s development. It will help them through their early years and serve them well when they are older.

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