Develop your child’s emotional intelligence

“I resorted to caning her whenver she tried to argue with me. This went on until my mother told me that I used to be like that. All I had to do was understand her actions,” she adds.

She says being understanding does not mean accommodating all decisions the child makes but being there for them at every level, guiding and telling them why the decision they are making is wrong and the consequences.

Life time gain
Ali Male, a counsellor at A-Z, says emotional intelligence usually helps the child independently handle problems that wreck their emotions.
“Such a child will always be composed in any situation regardless of the pressure,” says Male.

Love Kembabazi, a student at Makerere University Business School, says she always suffered anxiety when it was time for examinations and her lecturers jokingly referred to it as emotional stress.

“One time my friend asked me to escort her to a counsellor because she had pressing issues and it is from there that I decided to inquire about my condition and he confirmed that I was not managing my moods that is why the anxiety was affecting me,” recalls Kembabazi.

She had to take me through gradual steps to overcome the problem. What helped me was she built my emotional smarts that helped me eliminate anxiety issues I was facing in different fields.

Impart the behaviour at a tender age
Mary G.A Butamya, a counsellor and child psychologist, says cases such as Kembabazi should be dealt with from childhood so that the child grows up having an idea of dealing with such conditions and not freaking out when they are face with it.

“At a tender age, children need parents who can contain their feelings because with they will be free to always express it without fearing to be judged but knowing that they will be corrected but a parent who tries to manage a child’s feeling always leaves them vulnerable and they will fail to take independent strides because of the fear the parent has instilled in them,” says Butamya.

She says children should be helped to learn emotional vocabulary that helps them communicate how they feel. Once that is done, such a child will be of help to the others too because they will emulate her behaviour hence passing on their emotional intelligence.

Parents take the lead
Male says sometimes children throw tantrums and a parent’s effort to calm them down goes in vain because the child will get worse.

He says adults ought to know that children too need to be understood and this happens after a parent has internalised the child’s behaviour at that particular moment then they can regulate their emotions.

“Just like an adult keeps on learning how to recognise their feelings, sometimes recognising the child’s emotion may take long but practice is always key and makes perfect,” advises Male.

He says the earlier a parent starts understanding their child, the easier the work because this takes a gradual process and every day there is something new to learn.

What emotional intelligence means
Rose Margret Katengeke, a teacher and child counsellor, says emotional intelligence shows children that all emotions are acceptable apart from those that hurt others. She says it is not only meant for the way a person behaves but also teaches them how to handle their mental stability which is paramount in someone’s life.

Katengeke says this starts when the children are helped to recognise and regulate their feeling something that applies to adults to but when doing this, a person trying to help should know that people bare different behaviours so trying to change one’s behaviour may worsen their state.

She says emotional intelligence is best developed when the person trying to help is not judgemental, understanding because it is with that that a person develops the habit of always using their conscience to handle situations.

Parents respond to emotions one of these ways
• Dismissing parents see children’s emotions as unimportant and attempt to eliminate them quickly, through use of distraction.
• Disapproving parents see negative emotions as something to be squashed, usually through punishment.
• Laissez-faire parents accept all emotions from child, but fail to help the child solve problems or put limits on appropriate behaviour.

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