ABU DHABI // A high level of emotional intelligence can lead to academic, professional and social success, experts say.
Directors at the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence in the US highlighted the importance of providing homes in which children can develop their ability to identify and understand their emotions.
Dr Marc Brackett and Dr Robin Stern said this would enable children to handle mishaps and situations that occur in the future.
“Emotional intelligence is a set of five skills, and these skills can be described as ‘Ruler’,” Dr Brackett said at a parenting workshop this week at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi
“The first skill is Recognising emotion through face expressions, body and voice. The second skill is Understanding emotion and its causes and consequences.
“The L is for labelling the correct emotions, and the fourth skill is Expressing emotions appropriately. The last skill is Regulating emotions.
“Our research shows people who are higher in emotional intelligence tend to be better at making decisions and tend to have better-quality relationships, better performance academically and thrive mentally and physically.”
Those who lack emotional intelligence have more aggression, poor mental health and more interpersonal problems, Dr Brackett said.
The first steps in the workshop are to educate parents, family members and professionals on the subject and integrating their learnt skills into parenting and child development.
“The purpose is to help parents recognise that it is important for them to develop emotional intelligence themselves and then teach their children,” Dr Brackett said.
He said the “Mood Meter” helped to build children’s self-awareness and expressive skills.
“It is a four-colour grid that gives children the ability to label their emotions and communicate them properly with everyone else, so they can have the right words to describe how they are doing,” he said.
The workshop was hosted by the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation as part of the Early Childhood Development Programme.
“The foundation’s goal is to create a culture committed to early childhood development in the UAE by facilitating workshops that integrate Emirati values with international best practices,” said Sheikha Shamsa bint Mohammed Al Nahyan, leader and founder of the fellowship programme.
“The parenting workshops are offered by world leaders in early childhood development so that the parents and care-givers of young children in the UAE are empowered and can promote healthy outcomes,” she said.
Workshops will run until May at Manarat Al Saadiyat and at Tawam Hospital, in Al Ain. To register, email eduprogram@shf.ae.
aalkhoori@thenational.ae
