Educate children in emotional well-being

Emotional well-being is a broad concept, which has to do with the subjective experience of feeling good, in harmony and with tranquility.

Educating children in this field is not an easy task and in this sense we have to work hand in hand with families and educational communities. As Aristotle already said "Educating the mind without educating the heart is not educating at all"

The key is in creating emotionally intelligent boys and girls 

Proposals that help emotional well-being

• Do some sports practice regularly. Physical exercise brings great benefits and offers the possibility of acquiring personal values, skills and abilities that improve social competence and at the same time favor emotional well-being.
• Share good times with the family such as excursions, walks, movies, meals, reading, games. Establishing positive bonds with children helps to bond. Feeling good in your closest environment favors personal well-being.
• Strengthen empathy. This trait/ability is a fundamental element for conflict resolution, understanding and bonding with others. Empathy is an essential element in creating positive bonds.

• Show affection: kisses, hugs, gestures of approval, of support. Feeling the love of others reinforces emotional well-being.
• Talk about feelings. Help children to put words to what is happening to them. Teach them to understand their emotions and to manage them.
• Set limits. Limits give security and help, accepting a "no" and understanding it is a sign of emotional awareness.
• Build trust. Creating comfortable, close environments and generating trust in children facilitates the verbalization of feelings, favors the explanation of problems, concerns or doubts.
• Teach them to be positive. It is important to know how to look for alternatives, not to fall into pessimism and to have resources to help stay positive.
• Acquire the ability to be resilient to recover from adverse or traumatic situations such as illness or the death of a loved one.
• Prepare children for the path of life. Autonomy, self-knowledge, confidence are characteristics that facilitate emotional autonomy.

Basic advice to support boys and girls 

• Help them identify their own emotions. For this we can help children by asking them questions: "How do you feel?" "Why do you feel that way?". In this way they express what they feel and recognize those emotions. We must not minimize their concerns, although their concerns seem trivial to us. We must reinforce the messages that help them process those feelings. For example, with expressions such as "I see that you are sad, angry, how can I help you?"
• Help them to verbalize those feelings, of joy, sadness, anger…. Children can express their emotions through various channels: drawing, music, writing, dancing are different ways of expressing how they feel. All this helps to understand the situation and improves emotional awareness.
• Help them manage emotions. Being able to explain how they feel, connecting with themselves is essential to know how to identify the cause of this emotion. All emotions are legitimate and we must accept them. Likewise, we must work on the acts that may derive from said emotions. For example: «We can understand that you are angry, but you cannot hit a friend because she has taken a toy from you».