5 Things Emotionally Intelligent Parents Don’t Do.

When we talk about being an emotionally intelligent parent, it is all about raising children who can manage their emotions better. 

We must look at some factors and one of them is- what A parent does! 

I have said several times that who you are is a function of who raised you is an advantage. Some people are at disadvantage because of who raised them.

Before we look at things that emotionally intelligent parents don’t do, let’s look at the advantages of raising emotionally intelligent child.

1. More ready to engage: An emotionally intelligent child is ever ready to engage in school activities. He/she is ready to confront whatever situation he finds himself. The child gets involved in things they do and in general.

2. More socially successful: I\’ve seen quite a number of parents raise kids that can navigate the social world. There\’s a study that says that children who can navigate their social world in the next 30 years, will have an 80% advantage over their peers.

3. They have impulse control: What we’ll be looking at this month in TIP Academy is \” Executive Functioning Skills” and this week, we will be dealing with Impulse Control. What many parents do not understand is that impulse control is one of the reasons why children misbehave. A lot of kids can\’t control their impulses because they don\’t know what else to do. When you raise a child who understands emotional intelligence, you\’ll find out that the child can control those impulses. If you don\’t teach the child how to do so, he’ll continue to do things anyhow.

Emotionally intelligent children are a product of emotionally intelligent parents. Emotional intelligence skills don\’t naturally come upon you but through the knowledge and skills you acquire. By skills, I mean doing certain things that make your child feel safe enough to express their emotions. When a parent is emotionally intelligent, it\’s automatically transferred to the children. Join the Waitlist for the Inner Circle program HERE

Now, there are lots of advantages of emotionally intelligent children but I’ll pause here because it\’s not our focus for today.

Okay! Here are 5 things emotionally intelligent parents don\’t do…

1. They don\’t bail their children out of difficult situations. The reason, why you have a problem when your child is going through consequences is that you don\’t have emotional intelligence skills. Many times, you hear parents say, \” I don\’t want my child to suffer”, \”I don\’t want my child to get angry\”, or \”I don\’t want my child to get upset”. Sometimes, it can be jumping in to pacify a child that\’s crying. When you do or say these things, you don\’t allow the child to go through different situations like disappointment, anger, failure, agitation, and sadness. You deny them the opportunity to deal with these emotions. For instance, your child fails his exams and is expected to repeat the class. You come home and beat the child because according to you, he didn\’t do well. Then you meet with the school authority to beg them to allow your child to move to the next class because you don\’t want him to experience failure.
   It can also be that your child isn\’t doing well in school, and you flog him whenever you are helping out with his assignments but when it\’s time to pay for illegal ways like paying for a mercenary to write external exams for him, you\’ll gladly do so. You are raising a hypocrite, idiot, and someone that can\’t think. I might be coming too hard on you today but trust me you need to hear this.
   Studies have shown that children who are exposed to tough situations, and conflicts and how to manage them are more emotionally intelligent.

When a child faces difficult situations, he gains the tools to deal with the situations, however, there\’s a caveat- it can only happen if the parents are emotionally intelligent. For eg, we teach failure as a tool in the Inner Circle Academy. Your child needs to learn how to fail and how to manage failure. But parents who don\’t understand shout \”God forbid! \”my child is the head and not the tail.”, \”I reject it” etc. Parenting is in the mess! Failure is part of the process of raising a child who will be well-rounded, however, what we call failure isn\’t necessarily a failure. True failure is when you can\’t use that failure as a tool to succeed. Failure is a tool in parenting and mistakes are proofs that your child is learning.

1. They do not shut down their children’s emotions. Often, parents ask their kids, \”why are you crying?” or \”why are you angry? I\’m the one having a hard time here!! When you ask such questions, you shut down the child\’s emotions. You make them understand that they don\’t have the right to feel certain ways. Every single emotion is valid. Studies have shown that adults who had suppressed emotions when they were young have issues building positive relationships and that\’s why you find that we have trust issues in relating with people.
2. They don\’t stop working on their emotions. I have constantly gone through emotional training in the past 10 years because I understand that it\’s a journey and not a destination. When you don\’t subject yourself to the journey, you\’ll have issues. Your emotions are your responsibility to handle. Parenting is an emotional journey because we are constantly battling with different emotions.
3. They don\’t hide their emotions. I see several parents feel disappointed and won\’t share with their children that they are and if the child asks, they\’ll be like, \”I\’m fine” while they are not.

You can\’t name your emotions because you don\’t even know what you feel at the moment. What happens is that the child learns to mask their emotions and become hypocritical. They won\’t be able to define what they feel at times. When you say I\’m okay or I\’m fine, you are being hypocritical because you think that you ought to be perfect. You don\’t need PERFECTION but TRAINING. When you make mistakes, don\’t mask them because you have bought into an infallibility narrative. The infallibility narrative in parenting is a false narrative and it will mess up your journey.
When you become vulnerable in your parenting journey, you don\’t lose credibility rather you gain trust and trust is the biggest currency in your journey. Without trust, whatever you do is balderdash. Putting up a facade of perfection, hiding your emotions, and hiding failures are not good examples but show that you have no emotional intelligence. Your children need to see you make mistakes and admit them and by so doing, you teach them to take responsibility for their actions.

1. They are not reactive to situations but proactive. The parent thinks about the process and then takes him/herself out of the process of helping the child. When a child fails, an emotionally intelligent parent uses the tools to help the child become better by using that same failure but the child of a not emotionally intelligent parent struggles.

In your journey as a parent, you need to understand that you are the most important pace. Parenting is about you and not your child. You need to connect to correct and you do that by working on your emotions. Also, teach them that the world doesn\’t revolve around them. Teach them how to deal with and how survive situations like bullying. Let them know how to survive the woes of the world so that they won\’t be fazed.

Raise them to be resilient and the best way for you to do that is to LEARN. It is compulsory to learn to parent. Wisdom is profitable. You can get information from anywhere but not wisdom because it is hidden. What your children are interested in is WISDOM and not rhetoric or advice.
They need the wisdom to know what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Your child won\’t come to you when they are in trouble because you love them but because you have solution/wisdom.

Have you registered for the Master Your Emotions Challenge? it kicks off in 2 days.Would you like to join 550+ participants who have registered for this Challenge?

With our upcoming \”MASTER YOUR EMOTIONS CHALLENGE\”, you\’ll learn practical, simple solutions, tools, strategies, guides & motivation to replace aggression and reactivity in your parenting with calm, peace & thinking. Whether you have one child or twenty (or one you still yell at who is twenty), strengthen your relationships and maybe even laugh a little more by taking this CHALLENGE today.

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