WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
The Definition of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence, or interpersonal intelligence, is the ability to understand people easily and correctly, and to interact with people comfortably. In addition to both verbal and nonverbal communication, people with a high level of emotional intelligence can easily understand the psychological state of others.
Students and adults with high interpersonal intelligence have leadership characteristics. They are also experts in communicating, empathising and acting according to the mood of people around them.
Skills acquired in childhood affect our emotional intelligence! Read this section to help your child improve their emotional intelligence:
Even though being a good communicator depends on the development of social skills, supporting these skills with other types of intelligence is the key to a healthier development. Improving different intelligence skills as a whole enables children to achieve long-term success.
Don't underestimate games, which are the most effective way to improve children's mental skills. For example, problem-solving exercises or board games will develop children's mental skills.
MentalUP, a pedagogically-designed brain games app, supports children's attention and memory development, and logic, visual, and verbal intelligence development.
The most distinctive characteristics of children or adults with high interpersonal intelligence are their leadership skills and their ability to understand and resolve problems in a short period. As a result, they are loved and respected by the people they work with.
Interpersonal intelligence is one of the types of intelligence in the multiple intelligence theory proposed by Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University. It is possible to guess the occupations that children with this type of intelligence will have in the future.
Emotional Intelligence Skills
As we mentioned before, children and adults with a high level of emotional intelligence can easily be recognised by their communication or leadership skills. Other characteristics include:
- Extroversion
- Popularity
- High energy
- Positive energy
- Leadership traits
- Strong communication, negotiation, and debating skills
- High empathy
- Strong teamwork skills
- Cool head in a crisis
- Solution-oriented.
- Good listening and problem-solving skills
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence?
Childhood experiences form the basis of emotional intelligence. Accordingly, these are the reasons why emotional intelligence skills might not develop at the desired level:
- Absence of a role model in childhood.
- One or more family members are more authoritarian than normal.
- The family is constantly being accusational and judgemental.
- Frequent discussions or quarrels between parents.
- Uneasy family environment.
- Lack of family or friends in childhood.
As a result, some children may have a high level of emotional intelligence, while others will develop it in later years.
Even if your child's emotional intelligence skills are underdeveloped, you don't have to be afraid. It is possible to support kids’ emotional intelligence skills with some exercises and practice.
Make Sure Your Child is a Good Observer!
Individuals with high emotional intelligence are known for being good observers. If you want your child to develop emotional intelligence, make sure that they observe people and social interactions. In the beginning, it would make more sense for your kid to start by observing people with the strongest emotional intelligence skills. Be sure to tell your child to pay attention to how these people choose to communicate with others around them!
Support with Social Intelligence!
Although emotional intelligence is not exactly the same as social intelligence, it has similar characteristics. Therefore, investing in your child for the development of emotional intelligence is also beneficial for the development of interpersonal intelligence. With emotional intelligence, you can help your child develop empathy and social intelligence.
Promote and Understand Different Cultures!
The people with whom your child communicates may not always come from the same culture. In this case, there is a possibility of communication problems. The best way to overcome this is to be able to recognise cultural differences.
Encourage Them to Be a Good Listener!
Qualified listening, which is one of the key features of individuals with high emotional intelligence, is a characteristic that can be developed with small exercises. For example, tell your kid to wait for people to finish speaking before they start talking.
Teach Them to Congratulate and Appreciate People Around Them!
Many people who have high emotional and interpersonal intelligence know exactly when and how to congratulate others around them. It is very important for your child to learn to sincerely appreciate the actions of family, friends, and people around them.
IMPORTANT: Emotional intelligence helps people to communicate and speak in front of crowds, which helps to build self-confidence.
To develop emotional intelligence, you must be aware of your child's existing level. It is easy to then support their development by following our recommendations above.
You can use MentalUP to support your child's emotional skills through visual, attention, memory and verbal exercises.
Best Emotional Intelligence Games and Questions
“To know each other is the best way to understand each other. To understand each other is the only way to love each other.” — Michelangelo
Doing exercises to develop all types of intelligence will help your kid and their mental development. In particular, visual intelligence and auditory intelligence exercises can help improve their emotional and interpersonal intelligence skills.
Your child can try the following exercises, which includes interpersonal intelligence questions, auditory intelligence questions and visual intelligence questions. Do not forget to visit MentalUP for more emotional intelligence quizzes and to test your child or yourself!
This game development of decision-making skills, emotional intelligence, and visual and auditory memory.
This game strengthens short-term memory, attention, and auditory memory.
This intelligence game strengthens intelligence by supporting planning and visual scanning skills.
This game contributes to the development of spatial perception, and visualisation, attention and emotional skills.
What is an Emotional Intelligence Test?
This test determines an individual’s level of empathy and public communication skills with others. These skills may differ according to age. In addition, the results can be a useful guide for you to focus on the skills that need to be developed.
Famous Figures With High Emotional Intelligence
It is possible to see masters of communication at work. They are popular people in high positions of power due to their advanced communication skills, rhetorical skills, and empathy skills.
Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhi, one of India's most important human rights defenders, is one of those people.
Socrates: Regarded as one of the founders of Greek philosophy and an emotionally intelligent man, Socrates expresses his hunger for knowledge with his famous saying, ‘All I know is that I know nothing’.
Sigmund Freud: Austrian psychologist Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis, and has influenced many people with his effective and strong communication skills. This characteristic shows that he has high emotional intelligence.
Which Professions are Suitable for People with Emotional Intelligence?
One of the most important questions that parents of children with a high level of emotional intelligence wonder is, ‘Which occupations are best suited for those with high levels of emotional intelligence?’. If you have a child with high emotional intelligence, you should first know that your child has no problems in expressing themselves or working in groups. Therefore, almost all professions are suitable but some occupations will stand out. Here are the most suitable professions for these children:
- Politician
- Manager
- Government minister
- Teacher
- Academic
- Therapist
- Psychologist
- Diplomat
- Negotiator
- Sales or marketing specialist
- Social worker
- Actor
