When conflict arises and feelings get hurt, repair is essential to restoring trust and connection with your child. When we repair after conflict, we create a more trusting and peaceful environment in our home. All parties involved feel more confident in knowing that connection can be restored, and that trust, safety, and respect are important family values.
As educators, parents, caretakers, or healthcare professionals, we often experience children feeling their toughest emotions. Difficult emotions frequently come in tandem with challenging behaviors. So what can we do to support our children?
Mental health refers to our emotional and social health. Our mental health and wellness impacts how we think, feel, and behave. When we are mentally healthy, we are better able to cope with difficult emotions, enjoy life, build and sustain relationships, and overall feel good about ourselves.
A person's intellectual ability or intelligence quotient (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to achieve success in life. Our IQ can definitely help us achieve and get into college, if we so choose, but it’s our emotional intelligence (EQ/IQ) that will help us manage the stress, emotions and relationships throughout life.
Just like all things in life, emotional intelligence skills are learned at different rates, there is no single model of how children will develop emotional intelligence. The most important thing we can do is model the responses and behaviors we want to see in our students and children.
When we teach our children to stand up to peer pressure, refuse to go along with the crowd when something feels wrong, try new activities or classes, stand up to bullying, master something new in the face of frustration, or ask for help in difficult situations – this is bravery!
During the preschool years, children will often begin showing signs of developing and understanding a broader sense of the world around them, this includes a greater awareness of others, relationship building and beginning to understand realistic vs. fantasy.
Just like all things in life, emotional intelligence skills are learned at different rates, there is no single model of how children will develop emotional intelligence. The most important thing we can do is model the responses and behaviors we want to see in our students and children.
While there are many people involved in how I came to be where I am today, I am going to do my best to speak about myself and tell my story, my truth. My story is my 'why', my best, my worst, my passions, my roles in life.
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
Think about the strong connections you have with the children in your life.Who are those children? Do they feel safe with you? Do they feel reassurance and validation from you? YOU, the adult, are the#1 most important contributing factor in how well a child adapts to adversities and gains resilience.
It can be difficult to decide if, when, and how, to discuss tough topics with our children. What is the best way to approach these tough conversations? As long as your child is ready, it's important for us to support honest and compassionate conversations around tough and complex topics.
Mindful breathwork can support a positive tone to begin the day! Adding a short routine breathing practice into your morning, is a great way to bring on a calm, peaceful connection with your child. I have included a great list of breathing exercises to try out.
