8 Best Emotional Intelligence Activities for Children

Parents play a crucial role in shaping their children’s emotional and social skills. These are the skills that they do not adapt themselves; they adapt what they see or learn. Dagmara Sitek is one of the authors who understands the importance of these activities in shaping children’s character. On her website and YouTube channel Courage Tales, she has shared various tips and strategies for handling children.

Emotional Intelligence Activities

You may have noticed that your children are sometimes irritable and at other times very playful. It might become difficult to manage them. As a parent, it becomes your responsibility to introduce your children to various emotional intelligence activities, so they can manage their emotions better. Here are the best emotional intelligence activities for children, which will help you:

1. Playing Emoticon Cards

This is a fun game to play with your children. Draw different emoticons on these cards, like happy, angry, sad, or crying. Turn by turn, you and your children have to pick up the card and act out that feeling. Also, share the instance when you felt that emotion. This activity will help your children to speak their hearts out about every emotion.

2. Daily Diary or Journal Entry

If your child is old enough to read and write, then ask them to decorate a diary or notebook. Encourage them to make daily entries in their diary before going to sleep. Give them stickers and colors that they can use in their diary entry. It is one of the oldest and most effective emotional intelligence activities for students and children. This will help them to bring out their hidden emotions on a piece of paper.

3. Reading Storybooks

A storybook is a perfect way to educate your children about good and bad things. Courage Tales by Dagmara Sitek is one such destination where you will get storybooks and picture books for your children. Reading books to your children will also help you build a good bond with them.

4. Role Play Activities

To give a clear picture of the real-life situation, role plays are the best emotional intelligence activities for children. You can give a situation to your child and ask them to express their views on such situations. For example: Ask them if you accidentally broke another child’s toy, what would you do? Or how would you feel if someone shared their stuff with you? With their responses, you can analyze their thought process and guide them accordingly.

5. Creating Cozy Corner

Create a comfy corner in your home with pillows, cushions, fairy lights, candy, and a soft blanket. Place an emotion board or chart, and ask your children to pick the emotion they are feeling at that place. This is another one of the best emotional intelligence activities for students, as after a whole day at school, they can find a place where they can relax and enjoy.

6. Gratitude Day

If you want to make your child humble, you can organize a weekly or monthly gratitude day. On the day, ask them to make a list of people or things they want to be thankful for. This is one of the most effective emotional intelligence activities for children in the long run.

7. Problem-Solving Activity

If your child also gets irritated or frustrated after a small problem, then this is the best activity you can do with your children. Create a story with various real-life problems and ask them how the character of the story should react in such a situation. With your children’s response, you will understand what their thought processes are. You can also calmly correct them if their responses are not satisfactory. In schools, teachers can also use these as emotional intelligence activities for students.

8. Emotions Drawing

Children speak a lot with their drawings. Give them a situation and ask them to draw a picture about it. Suppose you can ask your children to draw their favorite moment or place. This is one of the best emotional intelligence activities for children to understand their emotions about a person or situation.

If you want to get more ideas on emotional intelligence activities for students, you can check out Courage Tales by Dagmara Sitek.