How to help your child build their emotional intelligence

Recent child development theory focuses on the importance of children being connected to their emotions to foster good overall mental health. Healthy emotional development can positively influence relationships, behavioural problems, and school achievement. Emotion coaching provides a set of guidelines parents can use to help their children to become more emotionally aware and eventually self-soothe.

There are five main steps in emotion coaching:

• Attend to the emotion;
• Identify and label the emotion, i.e. “I can ...