5 Simple Ways to Develop Emotional Well-being in Children.

5 simple ways in which adults can allow children to develop a sense of emotional intelligence and they’re ridiculously simple;

Listen (actively).

It is so important for children to be given opportunities to have a voice that is heard and, more importantly, responded to. Make a place in your daily routine where children can have a voice or opinion, such as group or circle time. Model active listening where a response is given based directly on the statement made. Modelling active listening allows for children to understand that there is a time to respond to another’s voice and that is when they have finished talking. Adults can leave obvious gaps in their speech to allow children to understand the meaning of the word conversation.

Plant Something.

It’s the greatest lesson there is. Grab a seed and some soil and plant it. Then sit back and watch it grow. Give your children the job of watering it each day, measuring it, taking a photo each day as it grows. Talk about the fundamentals for life and healthy growth. Change the seed’s position if need be, alter its environment. Then relate the seed to a human being. If things are not going well, let’s change something. Children need to know that they are connected to nature and as human beings, we cannot live without the wonders that nature provides for us. Ultimately, our key to success is our environment and we must take time to respect, understand and protect it.

Express Gratitude.

We must consider what we are thankful for. What do we have in our lives that we are grateful for? Health, love, warmth, food, clean water, freedom, family.

Encourage your children to be thankful for these things and never take them for granted. Once we become complacent, we can take these things for granted and we never truly know when they can be taken away from us. Constantly remind your children and yourselves that we are indeed very lucky to have what we do.

Try Something New.

We want to encourage children to be accepting in life. Accepting cultures, faiths, beliefs. But it starts by encouraging our children to accept the simple things in life, such as change. Encourage your children to try that new food, to walk the path less trodden, or to sit with the lonely boy in class. Yes, they may hate it, and it won’t always be easy, but at least from the attempt to try something new, we encourage a certain level of openness. From mistakes comes great learning and, you never know, they might just love it.

Read, Read, Read.

No matter how technology evolves to make reading more accessible, there’ll never be anything better than the feeling of a real book. The smell of the paper, the feel of the pages, the handwritten notes in the back of the book, the shifting of weight from left to right as you progress, the knowledge that you can pass the book on to a friend after reading it or store it in on your bookcase for a later date.

To allow your children access to books is an essential part of their educational evolution. Reading together, sharing a book, laughing together and having a book club. These are the things that nurture a love for life-long learning. If there’s a library near you, then make it your mission to go there once per week. It’s a resource that so many can only dream of.

Get started this week by allocating one activity to each day.

Good luck and let me know how you get on with this!!!

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