Emotional intelligence is a concept that has acquired great importance in recent years, although it has always been present in our lives. Since children are very young, it is convenient to train that emotional intelligence so that in the future they know how to control and understand their emotions , as well as solve problems by having self-control over their own feelings and thoughts. In Bekia, we tell you a little more about this aspect.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability that people have to perceive both their own and others’ emotions , as well as understand and regulate them . In order to acquire social skills and create a positive environment with the people around you, emotional intelligence is essential.

The intelligence emotional consists of a set of skills that allow you to have the self – control of our own emotions and feelings. These skills curb your impulsive behaviors and help resolve conflicts in an assertive way. Thus, we will describe these skills below to facilitate their understanding.

Emotional perception

The first skill of emotional intelligence is emotional perception. This makes you realize what you are feeling at a certain moment and thus we can identify what type of emotion we are feeling at that moment.

Emotional perception also helps you to recognize what emotions and feelings other people are feeling, as it will facilitate the interpretation of both facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice.

Children will begin to identify their own and other people’s emotional states from the age of 3 , and will establish relationships so that if you are sad or you are not having a good day and your facial expression is sad, your child will notice it and realize it. that something happens to you.

Emotional thought facilitation

Emotional facilitation allows you to establish relationships between what you feel and the problem that has been presented to you. That is, when you are in a certain situation, emotions influence your thinking and your way of acting, causing you to make some decisions or others. Thus, this skill will help you to act in a positive way to solve your problems .

As is evident, if you are very happy you will not act in the same way as if you are sad , so your points of view, your mood and even your humor will influence your decisions, relationships with others and in your way of acting. It is important that you are able to control your emotions and direct attention to the truly important issues, without getting carried away by the impulses of the moment.

Emotional understanding

Emotional understanding is of the utmost importance, as it allows you to understand what emotions you are feeling at a given moment . Therefore, if you can get to know what is happening to you and why you are feeling that emotion, you will be able to predict the consequences that your actions will have and help you act in the best possible way.

In other words, emotional understanding helps you think before you act . If you understand what is happening to you, it will be easier to find a solution to the problem and above all, how to cope without the need to perform acts that you may later regret. This ability begins in childhood and develops throughout life.

Emotional regulation

Emotional regulation is the most complex skill of Emotional Intelligence , because it encompasses all the skills mentioned above. It consists of being able to regulate both your emotions and those of others.

To regulate your behavior when you are feeling an emotion, you first have to know what happens to you (emotional perception), what are the relationships between that emotion and your behavior (thought facilitation), why this happens to you (emotional understanding), and how Do not act impulsively without emotion dominating you (emotional regulation).

Therefore, this skill requires the implementation of various strategies not to act impulsively , and to make others not act on you either. Emotion regulation also allows you to hide your emotions when the situation does not allow you to express what you feel.

With this ability, you will be able to pretend that you are fine when in reality you are wrong , so you can choose to express your feelings or not. In the same way, you can act in a certain way by making others think that you are happy when in fact you are broken inside.

All the skills that make up emotional intelligence must be trained from when we are very young in order to become very emotionally intelligent and to be able to dominate situations, instead of being the ones that dominate you. That is why emotional intelligence is so important, because it allows you to have that self-control over what you feel and act appropriately depending on each situation.