An introduction to emotional intelligence for kids
When I was a kid, no one taught me about feelings. Even when I took psychology in college I still didn’t learn why sometimes I felt angry or sad or worried or happy — and that I had a choice about my feelings. I noticed that I had different feelings, and other people did too. I noticed that sometimes I could get more of what I wanted by using the feelings that matched the situation, but a lot of the time it seemed like feelings were something that just happened to me.
How about you?
Have you learned much about your feelings? How have you learned that?
Do you feel in charge of your feelings, or does it seem like they’re in charge of you? Are there some feelings that are easier for you to understand, but others that are more confusing?
Almost accidentally, I started working in a job where I was teaching people about feelings, so I had to learn a lot! I read, talked to work friends, and paid much closer attention to my own and others’ reactions. I’ve enjoyed this learning about emotional intelligence and it’s helping me be happier, stronger, and accomplish more, so I want to share some of the ideas with you.
“Emotional intelligence” means being smart with feelings. Emotional intelligence allows us to make good decisions and work well with others.
Some people have not heard about emotional intelligence; it’s pretty much like other forms of intelligence. So what is “intelligence”? Someone who is intelligent is able to gather information and use it to solve problems. For example, if someone is smart about math, what can they do well? They pay close attention to numbers, and are accurate. Then they use that information to solve math problems (such as how to divide fractions).
Pretty much the same is true for emotional intelligence. People who are smart with emotions notice and can accurately describe feelings. They can use feelings to solve problems (such as how to be a good friend).
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Why does it matter?
A few years ago, a work friend of mine, Anabel Jensen, and I asked students how learning about emotions helped them. Here are a few of the answers from kids. How did it help you to learn about emotions?
I felt more included.
I felt less alone.
I learned how to listen to people.
I learned how to be a better friend and to ask my friends to be better friends.
We were working together to make everybody’s life better.
I felt more in charge of my own feelings.
.How does that sound to you?
In the last few years, a lot of research has been conducted to measure how emotional intelligence skills help people. The research, and our experience teaching about emotions, says that the skills of emotional intelligence help young people have less, and more:
Would you like less of these?
My sister and I were playing and having fun, but then she got really annoying and… well, here I am back in time out.
I’m bored. I KNOW there is a lot to do, but I just can’t find the energy to do anything.
I wish my friends would stop leaving me out of the game at school, but I don’t know how to get them to include me.
I have lots of really good ideas, but sometimes kids don’t listen to me because they say I am too bossy. But their ideas are boring.
A lot of times I KNOW the answers on the test, but I just can’t think of it right then.
And more of these?
I’m happy because I have lots of good friends and I can always talk to them.
When kids are doing something wrong or dangerous, I am able to stop them — or at least walk away and not get involved in bad behavior.
Sometimes I have bad moods, but I can get myself out of it and try again.
I hardly ever have fights with my parents about homework because I’ve gotten good at doing it.
My brother is sometimes annoying, but I know how to work around that so we have fun together.
Is there one on the right that you especially want to have more often? Can you think of other ways being smarter with feelings would help you and others?
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Is there one of the stories on the left that you experience too often? Can you think of other problems that you could solve if you were smarter with feelings?
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.Getting Started
The best news about emotional intelligence is that it’s something EVERYONE has and everyone can improve. Maybe it’s not something you’ve given much attention, or maybe you’ve already learned a lot, but in any case you grow in this. I call this “growing on the inside.” On the outside kids grow in obvious ways (like getting taller). What does it mean to grow on the inside?
Can you notice how you’ve already grown a lot on the inside? For example, when you were little, you probably were more selfish and less careful than you are now. Maybe you’ve learned to think a little more before you act, or to notice when you’re feeling tired and take care of yourself better? Sure, maybe another kid or an adult is even better at some of those things, but you’ve grown — which shows you that you can. Do you want to grow on the inside even more?
This is a serious question. If you don’t actually WANT to be more emotionally intelligent, you are not likely to do it. On the other hand, if you go back to the two lists, above, and you want less of the “left” and more of the “right,” then you do want to grow — and you can.
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Emotions Are Messages
I work for an organization called Six Seconds. We’re called “Six Seconds” because of the way emotions work in our bodies. Suppose you’re playing and you break something you like. Here’s what happens in your brain:
The first ¼ second: You begin to pay attention and notice something happened.
Second ¼ second: Your brain begins to decide this is a problem, and produces a bunch of new chemicals.
Next ½ second: The chemicals go flowing into your brain and start going into your blood. These chemicals are messengers causing a whole bunch of different reactions in you (such as, tightening certain muscles, focusing your attention, making you tear up, changing the way you’re breathing).
Next 5 seconds: The chemicals continue to flow through your blood and go everywhere in your body. The emotion messenger chemicals cause different cells in your body to produce new chemicals — so they ripple through you expanding their effect.
After six seconds, the original chemicals are almost all gone. They’ve delivered their messages and you are now reacting to the mistake of breaking that item. Maybe you’re crying and sad, maybe your mad and wanting to blame, maybe you’re shocked and still, maybe you’re wanting to run away. Your reaction depends on how you’ve learned to deal with this flood of chemicals.
But here’s something amazing: Those original feeling chemicals are now gone. If you continue to feel sad/mad/afraid/hurt — whatever — you are actually choosing to re-create more and more of the feeling chemicals. You don’t HAVE to keep reacting. You’re reacting because that’s what you’ve learned to do. You can learn a different way of reacting.
Everyone has these chemicals, and each feeling chemical carries both a message and some chemical power. Feelings are information and energy. As we become more emotionally intelligent, we get better at “reading” the messages and we get to use the energy to move us forward in a useful direction.
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Three Steps for Feeling Smarter
At Six Seconds, we have a way of practicing emotional intelligence that uses three steps:
1.Notice your reactions.
We call this “Know Yourself” because we want you to tune in and pay close
attention to what’s happening inside you.
2.Take charge of your responses.
This step is called “Choose Yourself” because you have a lot of options
of how you feel and think and act — which will you select?
3.Decide what’s really important.
“Give Yourself” is the final step because now you’re thinking not just
about you, but what you want to give to others and the world.
These three steps are not always easy, but we’ve found that (just like learning anything) when you start practicing, you get better and better at it. Usually we show people three steps in a circle. Once you’ve done any of the steps, it makes the next step easier. Then you can keep repeating the steps over and over until you are really clear about what you want and how to move toward that.
For the next few days, notice yourself in these three steps. Do you find certain steps easier, harder? Do you do some of the steps only in certain situations? Maybe you follow the steps carefully when you’re with some people, but not so carefully when you are with others?
Use this chart to check your progress. It gives examples what you might think, feel, and do if you are not practicing the steps of EQ…. and what you might think, feel, and do if you ARE practicing each step:
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Are you putting the three steps in action? |
What you might say if you are not doing this |
What you might say if you are doing this a lot |
|
Know Yourself: Notice your reactions. |
“Feelings just happen, I have no idea why.” |
“I can clearly see the steps of what happened to create my feelings, and what I did.” |
|
Choose Yourself: Take charge of your responses. |
“Act first, think later… I don’t have a choice.” |
“I have choices about how to respond, I don’t need to defend myself or attack without thought.” |
|
Give Yourself: Decide what’s really important. |
“I don’t think about others or the world, I’m just focused on what I want.” |
“I am connected to others and our world, and am committed to doing my part.” |
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You As A Scientist
At Six Seconds, we teach teachers a process for working with students on emotional intelligence. It’s called “Self-Science” because we want students to use the skills of a scientist to learn about themselves. A scientist notices. When something goes as expected, she notices that… and when something goes differently than planned, she definitely pays attention! Not with frustration or disappointment, but with curiosity. The scientist’s most powerful tool is the question. Scientists are always saying: “I wonder….” So I encourage you to try that out — to be like a scientist observing yourself.
Noticing your reactions and choices is a powerful way of developing emotional intelligence. In fact, by paying close attention to the way you’re following these steps, you’ll be working on step 1! What are your emotional intelligence strengths? Where do you get stuck or have trouble? Practice observing yourself as a Self-Scientist — you’re on your way to increasing your emotional intelligence!
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What do emotions actually tell us? Click here for PART TWO: DECODING EMOTIONS
©2010 (updated 2023) Joshua Freedman, Six Seconds, All Rights Reserved.
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I love the flow of the words, it can easily be used as intro to EQ for kids as well. It makes them understand how emotions flow in the six seconds to end up as a reaction. Informative for adults as well. Simply to the point
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Joshua thats a wonderful article, u simplified it in a an amazing way, i have a workshop for children on exploring emotions and this is really helpful =)
When i was small i did not know what feelings were either until Now that i am in Fifth grade and i read this article
What ages is this appropriate for?
Hi Sarah, What would you say? I’m not sure! It was written originally for a group of “academically gifted” 7-8 year-olds.
🙂
Josh, reading this – the less/more part from a kids perspective is very enlightening.
I can relate to the situations I see in 4-8 yo when they are being ‘punished’ by their parents for not doing the ‘right’ thing and the kids develop a phobia to express themselves – all for lack of knowledge/awareness… and I am coming from the perspective of underprivileged /less educated families esp. in my nation.
If I understand, this was written for ‘academically gifted’ I would like to apply this to those kids who are but average..
being a parent, I tend to rationalize and agree on this approach and method
I believe it should be made more accessible in all schools.. but more so for open school parents too.
Great piece Joshua. Thank you. I especially love the breakdown of ‘6 seconds’. I’m about to share this article with my teacher friends who I know already do such a great job of teaching Social Emotional Intelligence.
I need to take charge of my responses and decide what really is important.I need to practice the EQsteps….
Wonderful, wonderful article. I noticed you used EQ and I didn’t see where you clarified what is meant.
Thanks Tom – in the beginning I put a very simple explanation of what it means, ““Emotional intelligence” means being smart with feelings. Emotional intelligence allows us to make good decisions and work well with others.” Do you think it needs more clarification?
Warmly,
– Josh
Hi Josh, I think you explain EI wonderfully, but what is EQ to the reader? Tom
Ah, I see. At Six Seconds we tend to use “EI” and “EQ” interchangeably. Of course, technically “EQ” stands for Emotional Quotient, the emotional intelligence score.
Dear Josh,
You have such a beautiful way of putting across things. Simple, clear and easy to grasp. The visuals are so apt and cute. Loved it.
Sudha
very useful article. I loved the visuals.
Niloufer
I work in substance misuse.
Most of my clients do not allow emotions to even exist as they continue to shut them down with drugs and alcohol. I also have become every interested in emotional intelligence since reading your article.
I found this very clear and easy to understand and would think this model very useful for many of the people I work with. I hope to develop a graphic display using some of these ideas, would be happy to share them with you when they are finished.
Thanks Carol – sounds great! Looking forward to seeing what you do with these ideas.
🙂
– Josh
Hi Kerry –
Thank you!
Re specializing, I can’t recommend this enough: http://staging.6seconds.org/training/certification.html — obviously I am biased, but as you can see reading the testimonials, I’m not alone in the opinion that this is a truly life-changing approach to going deeply into EQ.
Re emotion@ work – no. Emotions are invaluable at work, even “bad” ones: Anger can help us break through a stalemate to push for change; fear can help us focus on a big risk and prepare carefully… and of course expansive feelings like trust, joy, hope can motivate us to go beyond the limitations of merely “showing up” and supercharge organizations with people who love coming to work.
🙂
– Josh
Hi Josh, this is very insightful and I love the approach for kids. I intend on reading a lot more to get a much better understanding of emotional intelligence. How would one go about specialising?
Many companies believe that emotion in the workplace is very distructive, would you agree?
Love it! A great resource that’s just what kids need. The graphics are adorable, and the rubric is very helpful for putting the competencies into words that young people will identify with. Thanks, Josh.
Josh,
I found this article when I am in real need of it. In this article your have give real easy steps to follow to improve Emotional Inteligence. I am really glad that I found this article. Thanks a ton for this article.
This article will not only help teens but elders also.
Ruta.
Wonderful, friendly, graphically appealing article! Will certainly share it with my children.
Thump up and more than true
Wow!Great article,Josh!Now I can say I’m smarter about feelings!Very nice illustrations too!I love the turtle so cute…
Thanks for this interesting article!
I have been counselling and coaching teens and their parents, and will continue to promote EQ coaching for parents and teens.
Cheers!
Vincent
Great article, Joshua! Really well done. I loved the porcupines, and the other pictures. And I’d never heard the first 6 seconds broken down like that… really helps to explain how feelings are ‘processed’, chemically!
“Noticing your reactions and choices is a powerful way of developing emotional intelligence.” Right on.
Pass this on to other parents…
Many thanks for sharing this Josh, excellent writeup.
God Bless You.
Regards
Fahd
Very well written.. ! Most importantly, simple to understand and helps the reader connect with their own experience..!
Regards
Preeti
I just love this, Josh! Could this be the beginning of your parenting book….Hmmmm!
Much appreciation and warmth!
Debbie Havert
Love all the details and examples. There is so much we don’t know. Especially about people/kids who make bad choices or can’t read people’s emotions. Emotional Intelligence is one of those mysteries. Howard Gardner would call this the interpersonal intelligence in his theory of multiple intelligences.
Joshua
Truely inspiring, I cannot get enough of this information this is so important and so valuable, thank you
Chrissy
Josh, this is awesome! Thank you for sharing. It is absolutely timely as I’m coaching a youth right now.
Anita
I think that your paper was very helpfull
Josh, I am delighted how easily you make this information accessible for children and for us to share with them clearly. Thanks, fabulous job!