Through every stage of childhood development, your child is working on her emotional intelligence. Even the frustrated two-year-old who is throwing a temper tantrum is learning to manage her emotions. Keep in mind that the road to development has bumps. Also, it is always wise to remember that developing healthy emotional intelligence is an ongoing process; it is not set in stone at birth but is learned through experiences with yourself and others.

By becoming aware of your child's emotional intelligence, while allowing for the bumps of child development, you will be more in tune with how she is doing in terms of learning the skills emotional intelligence teaches. Some of these skills are empathy, communication with others, cooperation, and resolution of conflicts. These are separate and distinct skills, but they all require an emotionally intelligent person to master them.

Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings and take his or her perspective without being overcome by your own emotions. This clearly ties into communicating with others. An emotionally intelligent person is able to express his or her concerns or problems without being drawn into the other person's feelings, thus making it easier to cooperate and resolve conflicts. Clear communication will help the emotionally intelligent person know when to take the lead and when to follow or when it is a good time to stand firm or give in.

ESSENTIAL

Children have basic emotional needs that need to be met on a daily basis in order for their emotional intelligence to thrive. Some of these needs are to be accepted, to feel accomplishment, to feel cared about and loved, to be reassured and understood, and to feel supported and trusted.

In the next few years, you are going to be hearing more and more about emotional intelligence. Be on the lookout for parenting classes and books on how to help your children build their emotional intelligence.