EmoMe – Emotional Intelligence development program for children aged 4 to 16
A group of psychologists at Happymamma Centre have developed a program of developing emotional intelligence EmoMe for children aged 4 to 16, which is based on a five-factor model of emotional intelligence development and consists of 5 different blocks:
Self-awareness
Self-awareness implies understanding emotions or emotional conditions with a clear delimitation of emotions. You will be surprised how many adults do not recognize their emotional conditions, how many of them do not know exactly what they feel, or why and when they feel it. Simply, they have never dealt with this topic for several reasons, and one of them is certainly cultural, as no special attention was paid to emotion, their significance and their acceptance in these areas in the past.
The next step in this block is learning to accept our own emotions and be OK with them. For example, when we want to cry it’s all right to cry, we should not suppress and fight crying, but allow ourselves to be OK if our eyes are full of tears or we weep loudly. At this stage, we need the support of the family of the children who participate in the program. If we teach children on this block that it is OK to feel in different ways, and at home we mock them when we see that they will cry, we will likely confuse this child even more and act counterproductively.
Self-control
People usually think that developing their emotional intelligence will make them be able to control what they feel. That’s not going to happen. What is learned when working on developing your own emotional intelligence is actually the way we will react to what we feel.
Emotions are signals that tell us that we need to pay attention to something. Then we decide and choose the right way to react. The right way is always in line with ourselves and what we feel and always in line with socially acceptable behaviour. There are no good or bad emotions; there are only good and less good reactions to them. Anger can be a very damaging emotion if we direct it in the direction of hurting ourselves or other people. Still, it can also be a beneficial emotion that will stimulate us to change something and do something better for ourselves or the people around us in the long run.
(Self)motivation
Have you ever been completely carried away with an activity? For example, you begin to do something and work on it for a long time, and then you snap out of it for a moment and see that it’s been three hours and you don’t understand how it is possible? If so, that means you have just had self-motivation. It includes our personal desire for improvement and achievement, dedication to the goal that we want to achieve, initiative and readiness to act in accordance with the possibilities, and a great dose of our optimism and persistence.
Motivation is not the same as inspiration. Self-motivation rarely comes on its own, we usually need to push it a little, not wait for it, but to go after it.
In this block, children will learn how they can motivate themselves. Unlike external motivation or praise, which usually comes from the environment, it is essential that children motivate themselves towards achieving their goal. We investigate what children like to do; we work on their confidence and reinforce their sense of their value and purpose.
Empathy
The first three blocks were intended to find out, understand, and manage our own emotions. The Empathy block brings us a new moment which is the main importance of emotional intelligence – encouraging healthy and good relations in society.
Any healthy and good relationship begins by recognizing the needs of one another. Empathy does not mean a comprehensive acceptance of how other people feel and complete understanding of their feelings and actions, but the acceptance of others as they are even when we do not understand them at all.
Empathy includes feelings of care for others that we experience when we see someone in a difficult situation, or they are suffering for any reason. In this block, we learn how others feel; we find that others have the same feelings as we do, and we learn to see the world from other people’s shoes.
Social skills
After the 4th block, we come to the last one in the program that is also merging of the learned content from all previous blocks. Social skills are acquired throughout life; we are learning and practising them primarily by active participation in social interactions and gaining feedback from other people who participate with us.
We teach children assertive communication in this block. Playing out different social situations, we conclude who has reacted in which way and what can be the consequences of different reactions. Also, together we find how feelings are best expressed in a particular social context.
One thing we cannot possibly neglect when working on the development of the emotional intelligence of our children is that as parents, we affect the formation of their values. We can teach them the principles of emotional intelligence, but if we do not teach them the values of honesty and respect, we can end up with a child who is lying and highly manipulative.
Teaching children true life values is probably one of the best skills that your child can develop, and watching them grow into satisfied people who proudly control their own lives will make you even more fulfilled.
We are ready to help you with this!
The EmoMe Program was created by psychologists and psychotherapists with years of experience in working with children. The program is held at the Happymamma Centre for Family Wellbeing or through online classes but is also adapted for kindergartens, as well as companies that want to ensure the quality development of their employees’ children.
Venue: Online Program/Happymamma Centre premises/location as agreed
If you are interested in your child attending EmoMe program, please leave your details together with a note on the age of the child in the form below, and we will contact you soon!
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