Two eighth graders, Michael and James, found out they’d been exclud­ed from a week­end camp­ing trip their friends had planned. A gut-punch­ing moment.  Same sit­u­a­tion, dras­ti­cal­ly dif­fer­ent respons­es.

Michael spi­ralled into a rage, fir­ing off angry mes­sages to the group, then retreat­ing into his room where he spent the week­end gam­ing and refus­ing to talk to any­one. His par­ents, who’d always told him to “tough­en up” when he was upset, were at a loss.

James felt the same ini­tial sting as any eighth-grad­er would, but his response told a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. He talked it through with his par­ents, acknowl­edg­ing his hurt and explor­ing what might have led to the sit­u­a­tion. 

By Sun­day, he’d invit­ed two oth­er kids who’d been left out to go hik­ing (includ­ing Michael), turn­ing exclu­sion into con­nec­tion. When Mon­day came, he calm­ly dis­cussed his feel­ings with his friends, strength­en­ing those rela­tion­ships rather than frac­tur­ing them.

The dif­fer­ence? Not per­son­al­i­ty. Not luck. But in years of emo­tion­al coach­ing. 

While Michael had grown up hear­ing “stop cry­ing” and “just get over it,” James’s par­ents had val­i­dat­ed his feel­ings since child­hood. James knew how to name his emo­tions and work through them. 

Research backs up the essence of these sto­ries. Emo­tion­al intel­li­gence (EI) is a bet­ter pre­dic­tor of life’s suc­cess (work, school, sports, etc.) than IQ. Yet many par­ents still focus pri­mar­i­ly on aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment, unknow­ing­ly miss­ing a cru­cial win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op this vital skill. This piece aims to buck that trend.

Whether you’re work­ing with Pro­vo ther­a­pists or nav­i­gat­ing this jour­ney on your own, under­stand­ing how to devel­op emo­tion­al intel­li­gence in chil­dren is one of the most valu­able invest­ments you’ll make as a par­ent. 

Emo­tion­al intel­li­gence is quite sim­ply the most incred­i­ble skill you can teach a child.

 

How Do You Teach Kids Emotional Intelligence

First, you have to rec­og­nize that teach­ing emo­tion­al intel­li­gence to chil­dren isn’t a one-time con­ver­sa­tion. It’s got to be done reg­u­lar­ly for it to have any effect. Thank­ful­ly, you don’t need spe­cial train­ing or expen­sive pro­grams to get it done. The most effec­tive emo­tion­al intel­li­gence edu­ca­tion hap­pens in every­day moments: at the din­ner table, dur­ing bed­time rou­tines, and when emo­tions run high.

The five strate­gies out­lined lat­er in this arti­cle pro­vide a use­ful frame­work, but the real secret is con­sis­ten­cy. Just like how we learn lan­guage, chil­dren grow more emo­tion­al­ly intel­li­gent through repeat­ed expo­sure, prac­tice, and mod­el­ing from the adults around them.

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What Provo Therapists Say About Emotional Intelligence

It’s easy to think that emo­tion­al intel­li­gence (EI) is about being “nice” or “in touch with your feel­ings.” Yes, it’s a lit­tle bit of that, but it’s also much more. 

Researchers Salovey and May­er define it as the abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize, under­stand, and man­age emo­tions effectively—both in our­selves and oth­ers. EI essen­tial­ly works like an oper­at­ing sys­tem. The bet­ter it func­tions, the more suc­cess­ful­ly peo­ple can nav­i­gate life’s com­plex­i­ties.

Core com­po­nents of EI include:

• Rec­og­niz­ing emo­tions in your­self and oth­ers
• Under­stand­ing emo­tion­al caus­es and con­se­quences
• Man­ag­ing emo­tion­al respons­es effec­tive­ly
• Using emo­tions to achieve goal

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Why Your Child Needs This Superpower

The research on emo­tion­al intel­li­gence’s impact is over­whelm­ing. Pro­vo ther­a­pists con­sis­tent­ly observe that chil­dren with high emo­tion­al intel­li­gence show these remark­able advan­tages across mul­ti­ple life domains:

Academic and Career Success

• In a 19-year study pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pub­lic Health, researchers found that kinder­gart­ners who could bet­ter under­stand and man­age their emo­tions were twice as like­ly to earn a col­lege degree and main­tain steady employ­ment by age 25. Even more strik­ing, this held regard­less of their fam­i­ly’s socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus or IQ scores.
• Dr. Marc Brack­et­t’s research at the Yale Cen­ter for Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence revealed that stu­dents with high­er EI scores aver­aged 11% high­er grades, even after con­trol­ling for IQ and per­son­al­i­ty fac­tors.

Mental Health and Resilience

• Many stud­ies, includ­ing this one, indi­cate that chil­dren with strong emo­tion­al intel­li­gence show low­er rates of anx­i­ety and depres­sion dur­ing sig­nif­i­cant life tran­si­tions.
• Dr John Gottman has research show­ing that chil­dren who received emo­tion­al coach­ing from their par­ents were bet­ter at calm­ing them­selves when upset, had few­er behav­ioral prob­lems, and recov­ered from emo­tion­al set­backs more quick­ly.

Social Skills and Leadership

• Emo­tion­al­ly intel­li­gent chil­dren make great lead­ers, even as kids. Their abil­i­ty to be self-aware, self-reg­u­late, stay moti­vat­ed and have empa­thy means they are often the go-to choice for lead­er­ship posi­tions. 

Physical Health

• Per­haps most sur­pris­ing­ly, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Pub­lic Health found that chil­dren with bet­ter emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion skills had low­er rates of obe­si­ty and bet­ter car­dio­vas­cu­lar health mark­ers and report­ed few­er stress-relat­ed health issues by their mid-20s.

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5 Powerful Ways Provo Therapists Recommend to Develop Your Child’s EI

1. Build Their Emotional Vocabulary (Name It to Tame It)

One of the most pow­er­ful tech­niques in emo­tion­al intel­li­gence devel­op­ment is the “name it to tame it” approach, pio­neered by Dr. Dan Siegel. When chil­dren label their emo­tions with spe­cif­ic words, they acti­vate the pre­frontal cor­tex (the think­ing brain) which helps calm the amyg­dala, the brain’s emo­tion­al alarm sys­tem.

In prac­tice, this means help­ing your child frame thoughts prop­er­ly from “I feel bad” to “I feel dis­ap­point­ed because I want­ed to play longer.” Sim­ply renam­ing reduces the inten­si­ty of the emo­tion and cre­ates dis­tance, mak­ing it eas­i­er to man­age.

The more pre­cise the emo­tion­al vocab­u­lary, the more effec­tive the reg­u­la­tion.

2. Validate Their Feelings 

When your child is upset about some­thing triv­ial, remem­ber that their feel­ings are real, even if the prob­lem seems small. Val­i­da­tion does­n’t mean agreement—it means acknowl­edg­ing their emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence.

3. Use Emotional Moments as Teaching Opportunities 

When your child is calm, dis­cuss recent emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions: “Remem­ber when you got angry at the play­ground? What could we try next time?”

4. Model Emotional Intelligence 

Show them how you han­dle your emo­tions: “I’m feel­ing frus­trat­ed right now, so I’m going to take three deep breaths to calm down.”

5. Practice Empathy Together 

Ask ques­tions about how oth­ers might feel in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. This devel­ops per­spec­tive-tak­ing skills cru­cial for social suc­cess.

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Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even the most well-inten­tioned par­ents acci­den­tal­ly under­mine their child’s emo­tion­al intel­li­gence devel­op­ment when they do these things: 

1. Dismissing Emotions 

“It’s not a big deal” or “You’re fine” might seem com­fort­ing, but these respons­es teach chil­dren to doubt their emo­tion­al expe­ri­ences. When your child is dev­as­tat­ed about a bro­ken toy or a can­celled play­date, remem­ber: what seems triv­ial to us can be earth-shat­ter­ing in their world. Their feel­ings are real, even if the prob­lem seems minor.

2. Rushing to Fix Their Feelings 

It’s nat­ur­al to want to elim­i­nate your child’s dis­tress imme­di­ate­ly. But when we jump straight to solu­tions (“Don’t cry, we’ll buy a new one!”), we rob them of the chance to devel­op emo­tion­al resilience. Instead of being their emo­tion­al res­cue squad, be their emo­tion­al guide.

3. Shaming Emotional Expression 

Phras­es like “Big boys don’t cry” or “Stop being such a baby” cre­ate last­ing emo­tion­al wounds. Research shows that chil­dren who expe­ri­ence emo­tion-sham­ing are more like­ly to sup­press their feel­ings in adult­hood, lead­ing to increased anx­i­ety and depres­sion. Remem­ber: emo­tions aren’t weak – sup­press­ing them is.

4. Invalidating Through Logic 

Launch­ing into log­i­cal expla­na­tions when your child is upset (“But we told you this would hap­pen”) dis­miss­es their emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence. Yes, the les­son about con­se­quences is essential—but save it for after the emo­tion­al storm has passed. Hon­esty is great, but only if you do it at the right time.

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We’ve explored how emo­tion­al intel­li­gence shapes aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess, men­tal health, rela­tion­ships, and career prospects. We’ve looked at ways to nur­ture it and pit­falls to avoid. 

While aca­d­e­m­ic skills open doors, emo­tion­al intel­li­gence ensures your child knows which doors to walk through – and has the resilience to keep try­ing when some doors close.

In a world of end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties and chal­lenges, emo­tion­al intel­li­gence is the one skill that guar­an­tees your child will find their authen­tic place in life. Not because it makes them smarter or more tal­ent­ed but because it helps them under­stand who they are, what they want, and how to con­nect mean­ing­ful­ly with oth­ers along the way.

Need Help From People Who Know How EI Works? Find Provo Therapists Who Specialize in Child Development

Teach­ing emo­tion­al intel­li­gence can feel over­whelm­ing, espe­cial­ly when your child is strug­gling with big emo­tions or behav­ioral chal­lenges. If you’re in the Pro­vo area and need pro­fes­sion­al sup­port, Bridge­Hope Fam­i­ly Ther­a­py is def­i­nite­ly an option to explore. 

Our Pro­vo ther­a­pists get child devel­op­ment on a most gran­u­lar lev­el. We under­stand how to improve emo­tion­al dis­con­nect in a fam­i­ly unit.  Whether you’re deal­ing with anx­i­ety, behav­ioral issues, or sim­ply want to strength­en your child’s emo­tion­al skills, we’re here to help.

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