While many parents are dealing with a highly sensitive child, others might thank their stars that their child does not throw up tantrums or throw a fit of crying when their demands are not met. And indeed, it might perplex you to read ‘Making Kids Sensitive is Important Too’. Here’s why. By saying make your child sensitive means make your child aware of his own emotions, assist him to manage the emotions, develop a sense of empathy and control their actions. Over years IQ has been given a higher space and has been a parameter to measure the success of a child as well as an adult.
According to an article published by Forbes, ‘When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time.’ Which means your child’s IQ does not ensure all round success at school and later years of life. EQ plays a major role in a person’s happiness and success. According to a study conducted by TalentSmart testing ‘emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs.’ It is great to help your child boost their IQ, but at the same time, their sensitivity to a situation and EQ ensures their overall success, happiness and builds and strong personality.
Many kids are born with the sensitivity and learn the emotional skills as they grow up. While many are almost clueless about it. However, the good news is, you can help your child build her emotional intelligence and sensitivity with proper supervision. Here are few tips for you to help your child.
Allow your child to put emotions in words
The first step you can take is to let your child speak up their mind and what they feel inside. They may not be able to express efficiently with appropriate words due to lack of a wide vocabulary. You must therefore give them sufficient time and scope for conversation when talking about their feelings and emotions. Allow your kid to put her thoughts in words than in actions. Initiate the conversation and ask them what they think or feel about a particular incident they just witnessed. Letting your child speak up their mind makes them aware of their own feelings and helps them express their emotions in the future.
Equip with words
It is a genuine problem that your toddler is unable to put her emotions in appropriate words. Help her learn new words by saying and describing the emotion and the word as and when a situation arises. For instance, ‘Mummy seems very happy seeing your sketch, you see! She is smiling seeing it.’ Let her know that the ‘happy’ feeling is associated with a smile. Or ‘Jack has hurt his toe and is in pain which makes him cry.’
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Listen
The most important thing which we all fail to do at some point or other in our lives is to listen to your child. Though they have limited emotional words and might not be able to explain how they feel- irritated, anxious or just sad. Listen carefully to their gestures and unspoken words. And then name the emotion. If you see your child being worried about his play at school the next day and is unmindful say, ‘I know you are worried about your play tomorrow, but I’m sure you will do great.’ So next time your child is worried about something, he will know that he is ‘worried’ and not ‘sad’
Help Control Emotions
Some kids just cry when they fail to stack their blocks. They feel the failure and disappointment and crying is a way to express the same. Help them control their emotions by helping them try again. ‘Let’s do this together and let nothing break our huge tower.’ Subconsciously, they will learn the virtue of never giving up and control their disappointment over small failures.
Appreciate
Finally, appreciate their efforts. If your child has a sibling, let them both learn the virtue of sharing. Give two toffees instead of one and ask her to share the other with her brother. ‘It makes me really happy to see you share your sandwich with your brother.’ Such small words of appreciation would encourage them to repeat their actions again and in return, they develop a sense of sharing what they have with the one who does not.
A famous saying goes like, ‘A child shows the man as morning shows the day.’ Nurturing the emotional intelligence and sensitivity in your child right from a tender age will help her grow as a person and an able leader in the future.
[…] The leaders all over the world take advantage of this psychology of people and play the divide and rule game. At the end of the day, everyone is bothered about their vote bank and nothing else. We have to try and change the attitude of people around us, but after interacting with many around me if feel it will be very tough. What we can do is to be human and respect and support everyone around us. And the most important thing we have to do is to make our kids tolerant. Kids are our future and as parents, we play a major role in shaping their thought process. Children learn from their environment and are not born with any malice and prejudice. We have to keep them away from prejudicial views but have to ensure we teach them to be open minded and tolerant. Kids need to be taught to be sensitive and you might like to read my post, Making Kids Sensitive is Important Too. […]
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