Our Program: Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ)

Self-awareness is the ability to know your feelings and how they affect your behavior. Your young child has many feelings and likes and dislikes, but not words to express those feelings. By the time your child is 3 or 4, he/she is likely to increase the words used to describe feelings. Your child is learning more about herself, and part of building that self-awareness is learning her strengths and weaknesses as well.

Responsible decision-making is the ability to make healthy judgments about one’s behavior and how it affects others. It includes all the social and emotional knowledge your child will accrue. Your child will learn to make choices that affect both her and others and gain important relationship and problem-solving skills.

Social awareness is the skill to take the perspectives of others. It is also being aware of socially acceptable behavior. This is a hard skill for children to learn and it takes years of modeling and interaction to develop the ability to recognize another person’s feelings and needs.

Self-management or self-regulation as it is known in the early childhood field, is the ability to control one’s emotions and work toward goals. Babies are not able to control their emotions, but as they grow and develop they begin to learn that it is not appropriate to take toys away from friends, or even bite or hit, when angry. Adults are needed to model and teach appropriate behavior.

The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with different individuals and groups defines relationship skills. This includes such communicating well, listening carefully, cooperating, settling conflicts and offering help when needed.