Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck, I teach communications, parenting, and self-government all over the
world. And, in this video, we're going to be talking about how to support a child's
social and emotional development? Years ago after speaking at a conference. Another speaker
my friend Dan pulled me aside and said, "Nicholeen, I love what you teach because it's all about
helping children become emotionally strong". I've never thought about it like that before
but I said, "That's true, that's exactly what I'm teaching". I don't want people to be held
captive by their emotions. I want them to use those emotions for good and to be able
to be strong emotionally. I want them to know what to do with their emotions and how to
use them in good and productive ways. In this video, I'm gonna share four tips for supporting
a child's social and emotional development. Those two things are connected. Have you heard
of the term emotional intelligence? I hope so. The term has been around for quite some
time. In fact, emotional intelligence is taught by some to be some of the greatest intelligence
that a person can have. It certainly influences society more than academic intelligence does.
So, what does it mean to be emotionally intelligent? Well, when a person is emotionally intelligent.
Then, they're able to analyze the emotions that are happening within themselves and choose
when it's appropriate to use those emotions and when it's not. So, an emotionally intelligent
person knows how to bond to people. Share love and kindness and understanding, deep
feeling. But they also know that sometimes it's not okay to share emotions it a bad moment
or it could even be manipulative to dump their emotions out on another person. So, there
are sometimes where they hold back and they choose their thought processes instead of
their emotional outburst. So, a person who is emotionally intelligent recognizes what
the job of emotions are. Which is to cue you to something, to be assigned that maybe some
actions need to be taken. But they don't decide that the emotion should necessarily be dump
out upon another person. Because that's not always the productive path. So, a person who's
truly emotionally intelligent thinks about their emotions before they use them. So, what
about social intelligence? Well, emotional intelligence leads to social intelligence.
But there's also another kind of intelligence that's called practical intelligence. When
a person has practical intelligence they know how to problem solve, work with people, communicate
well. They know what people want and they know how to deliver it to those people. People
that have emotional intelligence and practical intelligence are usually some of the most
influential people in the world. They make great leaders and people can't wait to learn
their secrets. So if we are going to support our child socially and emotionally as they
develop. Then we need to teach them about their emotions. We need to help them become
more emotionally intelligent and practically intelligent and I do this by teaching my children
how their brain works. How their emotions work. When they can choose to take action
or not. I do this by teaching them something called self-government. So, what is self-government?
Self-government is the process of being able to determine the cause and effect of any given
situation and then possessing the knowledge of your own behaviors, feelings, thoughts,
emotion so that you can control them. Now, that doesn't mean that we never share a sad
emotion or even a frustrated or angry emotion. It just means that we pick the right time
to do it. The time that will help us most and that will help us be understood by other
people. I'd like to share with you some key things that we can do as you're creating the
environment where a person learns to be aware of their practical intelligence and their
emotional intelligence as they're learning self-government. One key thing that every
person and every child needs to learn about is calmness. And they need to learn that they
can choose the calmness too. Does your child understand what calmness really is and what
it's not. There's a key time when all of my children are little, usually around the age
of maybe 2 or 3 when I teach them, "This is a calm face, this is not a calm face. This
is a calm voice, this is not a calm voice. This is a calm body, this is not a calm body".
And so, we help them differentiate between what is calm and what is not. This conversation
carries on through all of their years of development. So they are able to recognize when they are
being calm and when they're not. As well as when somebody else is being calm and not.
Helps them read people emotionally and socially. After your children learned what calmness
is, what it feels like, what it looks like. Then they need to know the big truth that
everyone can choose calmness. Nothing just happens to your emotions. You can choose to
be calm and not cater to emotions. You can choose to think instead of emote on somebody
else. They need to know that truth and practice not dumping out their emotion in certain circumstances
and thinking and talking about things instead. So that they recognize their emotions have
the power to tell them when the action is needed. But it doesn't necessarily required
dumping the emotions that's not the action that's required. There's just some action
that's needed. But it could be a discussion or maybe uses of skill or understanding another
person better. Maybe even waiting before the action is taken. Before I get to my next tip
which I know you're going to enjoy. I just wanted you to know that I am discussing this
topic today through the lens of self-government. So, I teach self-government, and on my website
teachingselfgovernment.com. You can find podcast, videos, vlogs and different products and courses
that can be helpful to you as your learn process of governing yourself and as you teach that
to your children as well. So, go to teachingselfgovernment.com for more help in that area. Now, let's move
on to the next tip that I have for you today. If you want your child to develop properly
when it comes to social and emotional control and connectivity to other people. They need
to know that they can't take everything personally. Sometimes we feel things when people are talking
and behaving around us. But we need to remember that just because somebody is expressing a
feeling doesn't mean that we need to take it personally. That means, we need to drop
the subject sometimes. This also means that just because we have a feeling we don't need
to take it personally every time. So, dropping the subject is a key skill to helping a person
learn to develop healthy social and emotional skills. The next tip I have for you is to
describe. When a person learns to describe instead of react. When something has gone
right or wrong. Then that persons learns to take a step back before they engage emotionally
or socially with another person. This is good, if a person feels that they can plan their
social and emotional engagements then they're much more successful and confident as they're
interacting with other people. So, what do I mean by describe? Let's say something went
wrong. When a person is expressing emotions about something going wrong. They might get
angry, frustrated, cry, yell at another person maybe. But when a person learns how to describe
they won't do those reactions. Instead, what they do is they think to themselves, "Okay,
I tried to do this thing but it didn't work". That is one of life's no answer to me. So,
am I just going to say okay and accept that no? Or am I going to disagree appropriately
with it and try it again? So, those are some of the skills that we teach our children,
disagreeing appropriately, accepting no answers. Some of these skills are part of the teaching
self-government parenting system that I mentioned earlier. So, when a person has this type of
skill to reference when something goes wrong, then they don't have to react. They have something
to describe because they have a set of skills that they can look at and compare their situation
to. As a parent, I also have chosen not to react but to describe instead. This helps
my children understand how to solve problems in a calm and effective way. So, when they
do something they shouldn't do instead of saying, "What were you thinking?". I look
at them and I say, "Just now, I gave you an instruction and you didn't look at me or keep
a calm face, voice, and body and so, I know that you're not choosing to follow instructions.
What you should have done was all five steps to following instructions. Two of which are
to look at the person and keep a calm face, voice, and body". Then I move on with my correction
and tell them what they earned and we practice doing things the right way. This type of teaching
is a descriptive teaching. It feels very safe, it doesn't feel accusatory. In fact, everyone
feels like it's actually a good, positive, and productive thing to be corrected. I always
tell people that when you correct your children. You should actually feel closer to them than
you did even before you had that moment of correction and that is possible. Especially
if you have a describe mindset instead of a react mindset. When you describe you can
have relationship even in moments where corrections need to occur. But if you reacting all the
time, you end up with a reactionship instead. If you've enjoyed this video about supporting
the social and emotional development of our children. I know you'll enjoy the next video
which is, how to understand, identify and release your emotions. Click on that video
now.