Last Updated on April 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson

Whether you’re a teacher or a parent, the emotional intelligence activities for kids I’ll list below will help you develop this crucial life skill. Minors’ development should be emphasized in the classroom and at home. Parents must be made aware of the value of developing their emotional strengths for such a task.

We must incorporate this work into our daily lives, just as we would in school or any other setting. Parents should serve as a resource to help their kids develop emotional intelligence. The needs that are most closely related to the child’s performance in school can come from home. Although this task is crucial, let’s recognize emotional control.

While each generation of children seems to get smarter, their emotional and social skills appear to be deteriorating quickly, according to Saphiro (1997). Thus, developing emotional intelligence at home is crucial.

Numerous studies demonstrate that emotionally intelligent kids are happier, self-assured, less aggressive, and do better in school.

Emotional Intelligence Activities 

There are many advantages to raising children who can manage their emotions well. It is not just for the child but also for his family and environment, such as the child’s school. I’ll now detail several tools we can employ in our regular work to enhance emotional management.

Lessons From Inside Out (2015)

Being an animated film, this Disney Pixar movie is a very effective tool for working with kids because it will be more entertaining for them to watch. It features five fundamental emotions (joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear). The authors struggled to deal with fear, a fleeting emotion, in the absence of surprise.

With it, they can identify their emotions and learn that negative emotions are normal.

The Play Shower

It is a project to create with a group of kids. It involves giving each other massages while pretending to take a shower. They will discover that touching and hugging someone are respectful ways to show someone you care about them.

The Box of Affections

It is an additional means of expressing our love for our companions. The family at home or other classmates at school can participate. They will place various expressions of love for their loved ones in their chosen box.

Drawing Faces with Various Emotions

This tool works well with preschool-aged children and those with some form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The faces can be drawn and then hung in a prominent location in the home or classroom. The kids will be able to express what emotion they are experiencing at that particular time in this way.

Acting Out and Role Playing

In addition to putting them on paper, a useful technique is to act out various emotions in front of a mirror while thinking about how our facial expressions change. They will eventually learn to recognize their faces and those of others.

The Emotional Diary

Those approaching puberty should write their emotions in the journal in a happy or unhappy circumstance. They can add to this reflection by explaining why they feel this way, whether they need to change the emotion, and what they can do.

They can get a better understanding by connecting with, naming, and understanding the emotion they are currently experiencing through theatricalization.

Listening to Music

Any educational level can use this exercise. Music listening has a positive impact on our well-being. You must select one that fosters tranquility, calmness, and inner peace to control your stress and anxiety.

Additionally, you can pick songs that make you feel good, like joy. If, after the song, you reflect on how you have connected with your emotions, we encourage the ability to listen while also working on emotional management actively.

We can also sing and dance to go along with this activity. 

Game Playing

Through playing games, kids learn to be less upset when things don’t go their way, to control their impulses, to wait their turn, and to pay more attention to what others are saying.

It’s also an excellent chance to create a good atmosphere with your family and coworkers, laugh, encourage a sense of humor, and build good relationships. We can use classic board games, but some games help us learn about our emotions. 

The emotional goose game is based on the traditional Oca game. It consists of boxes that show different feelings as the ball moves through them. The other companions will be able to help the one acting out the emotion they feel by describing it.

So, kids will learn that there are different ways to show how they feel and can pick it up on other people’s faces.

 The letters of emotions: 

With this deck of cards, you can practice naming your emotions and feelings. In these letters, a drawing shows how the person feels, along with a short explanation.

After the cards are dealt face down, you will roll a die to do a sure thing. The activity leader will choose these roles based on how old the children are and how they are developing. When was the last time you felt this way, for example? How does it make you feel when it happens?

 Principles of Emotional Intelligence: 

Emotional intelligence combines intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence and is essential in many areas of life, including:

• The perspective.
• Spontaneity.
• The Creativity.
• Social skills
• Emotional skills
• The control of feelings and emotions
• The management of hopes and perseverance
• The self-discipline
• The responsibility.
• Empathy (putting yourself in the other person, knowing their feelings, and managing them properly).

In turn, its principles are:

1. Receptive to any stimulus we receive through our senses.
2. Retention. It is related to memory. We find two types: the retentive (the ability to store information) and the memory (the ability to access stored information).
3. Analysis. This function includes the recognition of guidelines and the processing of that information.

Emotional Intelligence Activities in Schools

Emotional intelligence activities and management is becoming increasingly important in many areas, including school. This is true on both the interpersonal and intrapersonal levels, in the business world, at work, etc. Saphiro (1997) says that most of the problems kids have in school are due to social factors that hurt their self-esteem. If these problems aren’t solved when people are young, they will keep coming up as adults and make people feel insecure.

The goal of different programs is to help kids understand their feelings and know how to deal with them. This work should take place in a cross-disciplinary way, with all subjects, and in specific areas to solve these problems. Also, helping families is an essential part of the solution.

Around the 1990s, this kind of program started in schools in the United States. It was called Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Slowly, they have become an important part of the curriculum in many schools, from kindergarten all the way through to the end of required studies. It spread to places like Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Japan, all in Asia. The United Kingdom was the first European country to start a program like this.

In 2002, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sent the education ministers of 140 countries a manifesto with a list of the ten basic principles for starting SEL programs.

What are SEL Programs?

Roger Weissberg is the director of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning at the University of Chicago. In implementing and using SEL (Social Emotional Learning) programs, this leading organization did a meta-analysis that looked at 678 program evaluation studies where SEL was taught to kids in preschool through high school.

The data confirmed that the students in the schools where this kind of intervention and program took place received much better grades, especially in math.

Also, other important parts of school life, such as the 28% drop in bad behavior and the 44% drop in expulsions, showed that these programs were working. 63% of the student’s behavior was better than before.

These numbers show how well teaching students how to deal with their emotions works in a school setting. The School Emotional Development Program (PEDE) is being implemented in Spain. This program uses a cognitive-behavioral approach to help kids develop intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence.

Also read: 17 Tips for Being a Good Mother

This program is aimed at preventing problems and focuses primarily on emotions that are kept inside (anxiety, depression, social isolation, and issues related to health). This problem occurs when children have trouble maintaining their mental and emotional states.

Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

Developing empathy and our social and communication skills is part of the right way to handle our emotions. This is a powerful tool that has many effects. There, we can find:

• Increases self-awareness: We better understand who we are and our flaws and virtues. Thus, by enhancing our skills, we can work to improve.
• We tolerate more pressure and frustration.
• It improves our ability to work as well as teamwork.
• Social growth, enhancing our social skills.
• Increase in personal growth and more chances of success