Parenting, childhood trauma and EQ 1

Self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills are important emotional intelligence (EQ) skills.

Children are innocent and they express their emotions as they feel and experience them. They do not attempt to control or suppress their emotions. On the contrary they allow them to flow freely. Parents with who are yet to fully develop their EQ skills may be ill-equipped to face and manage (themselves and their children) this emotional expression (time, place, method, intensity). They may end up visibly upset or irritated themselves and knowingly or unknowingly choose a mental shortcut to suppress their child's emotional expression. This may occur due to one or more of following reasons: inexperience, low energy, busy schedules etc. Rather then spending time and effort in acknowledging, understanding their child's perspective, and nudge them towards learning self management skills like acceptance; parents frequently disagree, discourage, disregard their child's emotions. In the process they disrupt the natural flow of emotions (suppressed emotions), learning and corresponding healing. In some cases, they may parallelly have an emotional outburst further complicating the situation.

Such events can be viewed from a stress management perspective. Children in emotional distress demand attention, time, empathy, and effort from their parents. They do not want immediate solutions (~quick fixes) but a safe environment to express what they feel and how they feel. Such events are an opportunity to help improve their own EQ skills as well as facilitate the learning and development of their child's EQ skills. Parents experience a demand supply gap during such events. In the absence of required resources (time, effort, emotional availability, energy) they perceive the event or the child's response as a threat and react reflexively. A reflex reaction that denies the child's perspective and feelings, highlights the child's mistakes and traumatizes and alienated the child. For example: a child out of ignorance or in a playful flow or with an innocent intent might play with the fire stove. A parent walks in and watches the scene and feeling it to be unsafe for the child, harshly shouts at the child or hits him/her with the intent of teaching him/her a lesson. This reaction traumatizes the child. The attempt to justify their own perspective (safety), teaching a life lesson through trauma has unintended consequences. It disrupts the flow, generates distress, friction and agitation. The child may feel that the parent doesn't trust his/her intellect and may feel miserable or angered. Ideally, the parent could first have calmly asked the child to move away or stop playing with the fire stove. Next, they could both have sat down and discussed the event in its entirety. The parent could then have playingly (creative or innovative way) explained the inherent danger while operating a fire stove without knowing how to do so. This understanding and awareness could be reinforced  through future discussions. This approach not only facilitates the child's learning journey but also improves the child's perception of his/her parent.