RMIT University: Emotional Intelligence in Early Childhood Development

This assignment delves into the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) and its crucial role in the development of infants and toddlers. It emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, motivation, and empathy as key components of EI. The assignment highlights how fostering these attributes can help children understand and manage their emotions, build better relationships, and develop into well-rounded individuals. It provides practical insights and strategies for parents, teachers, and caretakers to nurture emotional intelligence in young children, including activities to promote self-awareness, encourage motivation, and cultivate empathy. The assignment also includes a personal plan outlining strategies for improvement, such as comparing scenarios and sharing feelings, along with relevant references supporting the concepts discussed. This assignment is a valuable resource for understanding and promoting emotional intelligence in early childhood settings.

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Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a behavioural attribute of an individual which focuses at the ability
to recognise the emotions of the people around them (Mas & Castellà, 2016). It is quite
important for me to develop emotional intelligence within myself that would help me
understand the feelings of the infants and toddlers and also help them to develop similar
behaviour.
Insights on Emotional Intelligence
Based upon the learning from the Mico-Credential concerning emotional intelligence, it has
been seen that it is quite prime to develop personal and emotional competence among the
children. Personal competence helps in emphasizing ones attributes whereas, emotional
competence tends to focus on the relationship that is being shared by the surroundings. Self-
awareness, motivation and empathy are considered to be the main attributes of emotional
intelligence that must developed among the toddlers and infants (Petrides, et al., 2016). The
learning has helped me to identify three valuable insights associated with emotional
intelligence that would help the infants and toddlers to develop three behavioural attributes.
Firstly, it is quite important to build the aspect of self-awareness among the children as that
helps them to know themselves. It focuses on providing confidence to the infants and toddlers
and helps them to believe in their own abilities (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2016). The
children would have the tendency to manage their own emotions at a very young age that
would help them to attain stability in future.
Secondly, motivation plays a vital role in the growth years of the children. In the initial years
of a kid, it is often seen that they tend to fail in their attempts of success. It is quite important
for parents, teachers and caretakers of the children to motivate them and provide them with
the confidence to try again. This helps the kids to develop their self-confidence and their
ability to perform better. It helps infants and toddlers to deal with failures which should not
be considered as the end.
Thirdly, empathy is an important attribute associated with emotional intelligence that helps
the infants and toddlers to develop their feeling and improve their ability in evolving as a
better human among their friend, relatives, siblings and the world.

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Importance of EI
Emotional intelligence helps to instigate the power of self-management among the infants
and toddlers as they provide them, with the ability to indulge in being a better human being
by understanding the feelings of others (Sánchez-Álvarez, Extremera & Fernández-Berrocal,
2016). The kids tend to be more aware and attentive to their surroundings that would help
them to build better relationships and empathetic to others. Emotional intelligence enables to
reflect and regulate the emotions of a human in their respective lives.
Development of EI
It is quite important for the infants and toddlers to feel important that can be done through the
support of parents, caretakers and the teachers. Such a feeling of importance would enable the
kids to gain the confidence and thereby develop socio-emotional skills. It is quite important
to give the kids opportunities to develop skills that would help them to accomplish work on
their own. The children should be made disciplines through the use of routine. Such a process
would help them to lead a disciplined life in future and to take decisions wisely in future. The
children must be showered with love and care.
Personal plan
EQ GAPS STRATEGIES FOR
IMPROVEMENT
POTENTIAL
SCENARIOS
Involving comparison among
two kids
It is quite important for me to
analyse ways to illustrate the
weaknesses among both the
children and therefore make
them help each other to
overcome such weaknesses
Such a strategy would help
the children to understand
each other. They would
acknowledge each other’s
strength and weakness and
instead of being compared
they would be friendlier And
helpful.
Helping children to share
their feelings in public
Such an activity can be
performed by providing the
child with importance and
love. Making the children
The children should be read
good books, make them
watch inspirational short
films or videos that would

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listen to reading out books
and indulging them in group
conversations would enhance
their confidence of speaking
in public
help in developing emotional
intelligence among them.
This would even make the
children happy and cheerful.

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References
Mas, M. T., & Castellà, J. (2016). Can Psychomotricity improve cognitive abilities in
infants?. Aloma: revista de psicologia, ciències de l'educació i de l'esport
Blanquerna, 34(1), 65-70.
Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (2016). The ability model of emotional
intelligence: Principles and updates. Emotion Review, 8(4), 290-300.
Petrides, K. V., Mikolajczak, M., Mavroveli, S., Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., Furnham, A., & Pérez-
González, J. C. (2016). Developments in trait emotional intelligence
research. Emotion Review, 8(4), 335-341.
Sánchez-Álvarez, N., Extremera, N., & Fernández-Berrocal, P. (2016). The relation between
emotional intelligence and subjective well-being: A meta-analytic investigation. The
Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(3), 276-285.