Sharpen Your Little One’s Emotional Intelligence With These Ways

Your Little One’s Intelligence consists of several aspects, including intellectual, spiritual, creativity, and of course one which can not be ignored, emotional intelligence. A person's personality is formed in a process that has been started since infancy. Your Little One’s development of emotional intelligence is very important in shaping his/her personality as an adult. The Little One with good personality will eventually have good ethics as well.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand the feelings of one self and the feelings of others so that one can more easily associate with others. The Little One with high emotional intelligence can be very friendly, optimistic, and have more ability to solve problems.

In Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence is included in intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence. The definition of interpersonal intelligence is the ability of a person to understand others including how they feel and what can and can’t motivate them. While intrapersonal intelligence is defined as the intelligence that someone has to understand and recognize oneself.

The Little One’s development of Emotional Intelligence begins with parenting at home. The best parenting pattern to shape emotional intelligence is the authoritative parenting pattern that delivers balance between attention, understanding, and love, with firmness and discipline.

When the Little One does a positive thing, give praise or small reward. Conversely, if he made a mistake, give a reasonable punishment. Explain to the Little One why the rules and consequences are important in the family.

Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence can be honed by doing the right stimulation, for example:

• Interpersonal intelligence: get the Little One to socialize with new people, teach him/her how to start interaction and engage the Little One in hobby club that he/she likes.
• Intrapersonal intelligence: teach your Little One to recognize the emotions within him/her, practice his/her perseverance in accomplishing tasks, tell your Little One, his/her weaknesses and strengths and help your Little One to find ways to overcome his/her weaknesses.

For a variety of creative play ideas that can sharpen the Little One’s multiple intelligences, Mommy can see it on Morinaga Multiple Intelligence Play Plan. In addition, Mommy can also use the tool for identification of multiple intelligences to know other intelligences owned by the Little One. Create a play plan that consists of various creative and exciting activities to all the intelligence that the Little One has for optimal stimulation.

In addition to stimulation, your Little One’s the nutritional needs also play an important role in the process of his/her growth and development. Make sure that everyday, the Little One gets the full balanced nutrition intake he/she needs. Provide additional nutrients that serve to support the function and development of the brain such as choline, omega-3, and omega-6.

By applying the above things, Daddy and Mommy will be able to form a good emotional intelligence within your Little One so that he/she can have good personality and ethics in the future. This will help the Little One to achieve his/her goals later.