Very Involved Parents (VIP)

Most of us when young had weird emotions when an unfamiliar event occurred especially when it involves empathy. At such a tender age, we wouldn’t know how to control or even understand such a strong emotion till our parents came along and guide us of course! So, now it would be your turn to educate and develop empathy in your own children instead.

To show empathy to someone is to understand their feelings or to understand how we ourselves would feel in the other person’s shoes. Its complex but is a skill which every one of us should learn. With a strong rapport built between you and your children, they should be telling you events that are happening in their daily life. They might also be consulting you for advice and ways to help them in solving their problems or helping others instead. This is a very good chance for you to help them develop empathy.

You would need to teach your children to understand that they are separate individuals on their own and they all have different thoughts and feelings from others. Help them to recognize common feelings that most people are experiencing like happiness, sadness, disappointment or even surprised for instance as this would help them to look into a particular situation and is able to imagine themselves going through it to understand the person in the situation’s feelings. Then, when they happen to be in the same situation later, they would be able to know how to response appropriately or offer the right comfort whether it’s to themselves or other people.

Talk to your children about their difficult emotions and use pretend play with them while talking. You may also include explaining to them and telling them situations that they should apologize as often than not, as parents you would insist on your kids to apologize as a way for them to take on their responsibilities which they don’t fully understand the meaning sometimes. Make reading a hobby and pick up on books that are about feelings or stories that are related to feelings! Of course, you would need to be patient when developing empathy with your children as they wouldn’t be perfectly empathetic being overnight.

Children who are of empathic would usually do better in school and in social situations as well as their careers in the future. Normally, they are also viewed as leaders by peers and with their greatest amount of skill at empathy; they are easily socialized with others while being able to care about themselves and others. Not to forget, as parents it’s important to be a role model to your kids as who you are will be reflected in your children who eventually would emulate you!

Self-expression is important in helping to build confidence in your children through letting them express their own ideas using their own creativity. Parents play an important role to aid in promoting self- expression among your children as this will eventually help to shape them to be who they are in the future.

To kick start, let your children make simple decisions like what they want to dress in everyday. However, if their choice of clothing aren’t appropriate or is insufficient, don’t hesitate to step in to compromise while improvise. You can also encourage them to get involve in school activities of their own choice even if they chose an activity that you wouldn’t choose as this will help to let them explore and learn their own interest as well as wrong decisions made especially when they chose the wrong activities to join in.

Let them mingle with a lot of children and also adults as it’s important for them to be exposed to different cultures at such tender age. Instead of having your children glued to the television which doesn’t involve any creative or critical thinking let them enjoy board games and interactive games with other children! You can create a safe and secure environment for them to play with one another to teach them cooperation, relationship skills and also respect for others. However, if you have no other choice but to put them in front of the television, accompany them together to provide a platform for interaction.

Aside from that, have your children learn to build objects! There are many play sets which need children to build them like dollhouse or model cars or objects that require construction or even jigsaw puzzles that are pretty reasonable too. This will enhance the teaching of creativity and promote natural progression within a certain set of boundaries. Children will learn to follow the instructions of assembling their new toy while being aware about the role of the guidelines to employ creative techniques that produce the end result. This, when connect to real life situation, children will find themselves naturally has the skills applied from their early childhood easily.

At this point, you will be amaze to find out what they would pick up aside from being very knowledgeable. Of course this can also be instilled through reading. While reading, make them take note of words they don’t understand and search in the dictionary. This will indirectly help in increasing their vocabulary and improve their language skills! During conversations, often encourage them to use those difficult vocabularies to describe things and situations.

Don’t forget to let them express themselves in their hobbies! Art and music is the best ideas for children to express themselves especially strong emotions freely and you would be surprise to have your psychologists finding stunning information about your child just from their drawings and music played! Art and music helps to open the mind and frees the spirit which is important for development of communication skills, emotional skills and psychological awareness.

Self-expression is indeed easily promoted to children if you parents are guiding them with the right upbringing and environment. You will be surprise what your child would shape to be when they grow older!

Wondering what is emotionally intelligent? It is where an individual has the abilities of persisting in facing difficulties while being able to monitor and read other’s feelings. This gives them the advantages of getting along with others very well and is able to resist temptation to aim for a higher goal. They are also considerate when taking action towards the needs of themselves and others. Have you been noticing these traits in your children? Then, here are some tips on how to raise them up emotionally intelligent healthily!

Self check on you first. Ensure that you have always been setting an example to your children by checking how you are reacting towards your child’s display of emotions. It’s important for you to always stay calm when handling them as it’s very easy for you to loose your temper and accidentally be verbally harsh towards them which are not healthy. Try avoiding excessive criticism as this would break their confidence. Don’t forget to stay in touch with your feelings as instead of hiding your real feelings which can cause confusions, you should be acknowledging your displeased feelings without acting upset to show your children that even difficult feelings can be handled.

Now, time to handle your children’s emotions. Help them to validate their emotions as they could be still trying to figure out how to express their discomfort whenever your children start to act up. Because their vocabulary and understanding are still limited at such a tender age, they would have trouble describing their feelings. Try teaching them to name their feelings by building an emotional vocabulary. There’s always a specific reason for your children to act the way they are discomfort with and it’s important that they know it’s normal to have conflicting emotions. Sometimes, they could also be upset or sad for no reasons but if you think about the recent changes or any troubling events or simply by observing and listening to them especially while they play, you might pick out something went wrong somewhere. It’s also essential to spare some time to listen with empathy to your children as this helps you to understand what your children are going through. This is also the time for you to build a rapport with them and share examples of your own life with them to show how far you understand them.

To teach them further to handle their emotions, you can turn their tantrums into teaching tools or use conflicts to teach them problem solving! When your children felt upset about an event, help them to prepare for the event by feeling in control through explaining to them what to expect and the reason of feeling upset as well as the necessity of them going through the event. Talking through emotions with children works the same way as it does for adults! As for conflicts, help your children to know that it’s fine to be angry but there’s no reason to hurt other people for that reason to avoid unwanted fights. Make them practice speaking in a strong voice or use the breathing method to let them express their emotions.

Emotionally intelligence children have the benefits of being loved by their families and friends due to their friendliness and socializing skills. With the correct upbringing, there’s no doubt they would grow to be a considerate and understanding adult!

Parenting isn’t a one sided issue. It takes both parents to cooperate with each other in the upbringing of your children and both parenting styles may differ which would result in complimenting each other when educating your children. Wondering which parenting style you are? There are four different categories consisting of four elements which are strategies of disciplinary, warmth and nurturance, your communication styles and expectation of maturity and control.

The first style which is known as authoritarian parenting or some calls it power patrol/perfectionist supervisor is where parents set very strict rules and the failure in following these rules would results in punishment. There’s no tolerance towards any reasons or excuses and are expected to obey orders without any explanations. There are definitely high demands from this type of parenting style but parents wouldn’t be responsive towards the children. Such children would be more passive though obedient and status oriented but rank lower in happiness, social competence and self esteem instead.

An authoritative parenting style or known as balanced or equalitarian parenting style on the other hand, would establish rules and guidelines which children are expected to follow which is a little democratic but the difference is, parents are responsive to their children and are more willing to listen to questions. Parents will not be fast to punish when children fails to meet expectations but are fast in nurturing while forgiving. Such parenting style shows that parents are assertive but not intrusive or restrictive while being supportive towards their children whom they wish to shape as a socially responsible and self-regulated, cooperative adult. This parenting style would result in cooperative and happy yet capable and successful children!

Permissive parenting style is sometimes referred to as indulgent parents whom has very little demands towards their children and rarely disciplines their children because they have low expectations of maturity and self-control. This group of parents is more responsive than demanding who is much more lenient and nontraditional. Parents would also allow considerable self-regulation and usually avoid confrontation from their children. Parents would be more of nurturing and communicative with their children but taking the status of friend more than parents which results in children ranking low in happiness and self-regulation! Children would unfortunately be experiencing problems with authority and would perform poorly in school resulting in being rebellious.

The last group of parenting style would be uninvolved parents or known as avoider who has very few demands and low responsiveness yet having little communications with their children. Such parents would be still fulfilling their children’s basic needs but are generally detached from their children’s life where worst case scenarios, are rejecting or neglecting the needs of their children too! This parenting style rank lowest across all life domains as children will tend to face lack of self-control and are less competent among their friends as they have low self-esteem.

Generally, children need both firm discipline and emotionally supportive parenting style to be able to grow psychologically healthy. Are you seeing a picture of your own parenting styles now? Thinking of a change? Stop waiting and start today as it’s not too late!