Discover your degree of emotional intelligence
What do you think about yourself and your possibilities? What would you say if you knew that changing the way we face the failures of life, everything would be different? It encourages a lot to think that, when we talk about emotional intelligence, the inheritance is not the fundamental thing. During childhood and adolescence we have the great opportunity to instill in our children those emotional habits that lead them to be happier.
As Maite Mijancos mentions in his book Emotional Intelligence and Happiness, we call Emotional Intelligence the set of capabilities that a person has to resolve conflicts related to their own emotions, such as sadness, anxiety, anger and their relationships with the emotions of others. It is closely related to cordiality, sympathy, empathy, to be liked by others, to approach them easily, to know how to motivate oneself when there is a problem, not to let oneself be carried away by anguish, to know how to thank, etc.
Our children must learn to acquire a series of fundamental emotional habits that not only govern all their actions, but lead them to be happy, because to be happy you also learn.
How to acquire emotional intelligence?
Emotional habits are acquired by the repetition of good acts that help to create personal satisfaction, to meet others, and to provide them with security and self-esteem. For this, we must suggest to our adolescent son that he reflects on his emotions, his impulses, and on his different reactions to different events so that he draw conclusions about his own life and in what circumstance he would like to change his way of acting. And the best way is to ask yourself about the different aspects and abilities that shape your emotional intelligence.
Tips to develop the emotional intelligence of adolescents
1. Maturation phase. In this phase it is easier to redirect habits and behaviors to develop emotional intelligence. Therefore, this test is simply a test that can help you reflect and that can help you, with a sense of humor, to see in which aspects you should control and further develop your emotions.
2. Constructive criticism. If after doing this test, your child gets a low result, it would be harmful if you addressed him disqualifying him: "You see, it's what I always tell you, that you do not control your emotions or your reactions well, to see if you learn from this try and put your hands to work ". With this comment, the only thing you will achieve is that your child will be discouraged. Relativize the test a bit and think with it all the good things it does and encourage it to develop more emotional skills, because it has capacity.
3. Changes in adolescence. If your child gets a high score, you should not trust them either. Although he is on the right track and can help others a lot with his positive emotions, he thinks that in adolescence, what is white today may be black. Also, let this result help you to share your emotions with others.
What is your degree of emotional intelligence?
If you want to discover your degree of emotional intelligence, leave doubts and perform this test:
What is your degree of emotional intelligence?
This test is valid for the whole family, both your teenagers, as well as you, parents can do it, but without forgetting the sense of humor. It is not a question of sinking into misery if we find that we lack much more emotional intelligence.
Perhaps a good therapy for the whole family is to strive to achieve that emotional ability that we have not yet acquired. For example, if my problem is that I do not have time to talk, during that week I will propose times to talk with my children or my spouse; If what happens to my teenage son is that he always gets angry when he receives a fair correction from his parents, during that week he will try not to get angry and to express his opinion with serenity.
Conchita Requero
Advisor: Maite Mijancos, Director of the European Institute of Education Studies
