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A "Heart Start" Program for your child's Emotional and Intellectual Learning
- By Selvi Muthiah, Director of Crescent Early Enrichment Centre B.Ed.(Special Education) with First Class Honours, Dip in Montessori Method of Education and Training in Reggio Emilia's Approach
Many parents relate to struggles of dropping children off at a day care or school. Your child may have separation anxieties by refusing to go without tantrums. It's naturally intimidating and stressful for anybody to be in unfamiliar surroundings with a room full of strangers. Let alone for a child going to school for the first time. The "Heart Start" Program at the Crescent Early Enrichment Centre (CRESCENTEEC) prepares children for school. This program developed by Selvi Muthiah is inspired by Montessori and Reggio Emilia principles of independent learning, emotional conscience and awareness.
Many parents relate to struggles of dropping children off at a day care or school. Your child may have separation anxieties by refusing to go without tantrums. It's naturally intimidating and stressful for anybody to be in unfamiliar surroundings with a room full of strangers. Let alone for a child going to school for the first time. The "Heart Start" Program at the Crescent Early Enrichment Centre (CRESCENTEEC) prepares children for school. This program developed by Selvi Muthiah is inspired by Montessori and Reggio Emilia principles of independent learning, emotional conscience and awareness.
Parent involvement is a big part of its success, parents attend classes with children, helping familiarise them with new surroundings, develop confidence in communicating thoughts and being comfortable around other children. It introduces curriculum learning as parents take a role in the child's education by helping with numeracy, literacy and the emotional challenges of school.--Published in The Parents' Paper April 2010 edition.
Developing Emotional Intelligence in Children
Several major problems such as low self-esteem, family-induced stress and stress from environmental influences, depression, suicidal behaviour, eating disorders, teen pregnancy, HIV and violence threaten the emotional well-being of today’s youth. The last decade has seen a steady rise in emotional ineptitude, desperation and thoughtlessness in families and communities.
BY SELVI MUTHIAH
Selvi Muthiah is the Director of Crescent Early Enrichment Centre. Selvi has a Bachelor of Education (Special Education) with First Class Honours, a Diploma in Montessori Method of Education and has completed the Reggio Emilia Series from Meerilinga Training College.
DANIEL Goleman, Ph.D., is a well-known psychologist who has written broadly on the subject of Emotional Intelligence. He has identified five basic elements of Emotional Intelligence: self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and social skills. According to Goleman and other Emotional Intelligence experts, these elements are not automatically formed at birth, but can be taught and enhanced throughout a person’s lifetime.
In schools for example, bullies generally fail to recognise their own feelings of insecurity or unhappiness and display aggressiveness towards other children. Schools should include in their curriculum to verbalise emotions rather than ignore them. Children should learn to recognise and identify their own feelings. They should be able to manage their emotions effectively.
Research that widely addresses the growing problem of bullying in schools today reveals that many of these youngsters are less equipped to “read” people’s expressions and often misunderstand facial clues, which results in them feeling hurt, belittled or insulted.
Holding a mirror and encouraging children to display different facial expressions to suit different scenarios are just some ways to help young children express their feelings and to better understand the expressions of others and to respect their feelings. Self-awareness and being able to recognise and identify a feeling is essential to a child’s emotional development. In order for children to be able to manage their emotions, they need to first know what it is that they are feeling. Stories and dramas are especially useful in helping children name emotions and in giving them language to express their feelings.
Children can be taught various strategies from a young age to effectively manage their emotions, such as taking a deep breath, counting to 10 and controlling one’s desire to tell someone off.
Sharing stories and books is a wonderful way to help children understand themselves, the people around them and the world in which they live. Sharing books and re-enacting a life experience with puppets provides children with a range of words that they can use to express their feelings.
Motivating oneself is another important element of emotional intelligence for it builds on managing one’s emotions to the extent that they can delay the immediate gratification of an impulse and can maintain a positive outlook.
A group of four-year-olds at a preschool was presented with the challenge to either resist or succumb to the impulse to take the marshmallow when told not to. They were instructed to wait for their marshmallow reward as the experimenter left the room.
Some of the children were able to wait and in order to sustain themselves they undertook various strategies such as closing their eyes, playing with their fingers, resting with their hands in their arms, talking to themselves, singing and even trying to go to sleep. These preschoolers who had the resistance skill were rewarded with two marshmallows. However, the more impulsive ones grabbed the one marshmallow almost within seconds of the experimenter leaving the room.
When the children were tracked later in their adolescence, the children who were able to delay their impulse had a greater intellectual potential. This study demonstrates the importance of emotional intelligence and also demonstrates that it can be cultivated. Emotional skills can be learned from a young age.
Literature is an excellent source of inspiration and motivation for young children. Parents and educators need to work together. Like the other elements of emotional intelligence, empathy can be learned and parents and schools should educate children from the early years to try and put themselves in someone else’s shoes and examine their feelings in that situation. Stories such as The rainbow fish and Marvin wanted more provide ample opportunities for educators to teach young children how to handle relationships or social skills such as sharing, interacting with others and what is admirable and what is shameful behaviour.
While emotional intelligence is certainly not a cure-all for all the problems that exist in the world today, it is undoubtedly a crucial factor in many global personal issues today such as road rage, child abuse, bullying in schools, school shootings and juvenile crimes. These are just a few of the serious problems in our society today that raising children’s emotional intelligence can address.
Good books, puppets and role-modelling have an important role to play in helping children to manage emotions. They create role models for them to look up to and characters to avoid. Developing emotional intelligence in young children helps them to become more intelligent human beings and puts them in touch with their humanity.
--Published in Offspring magazine Spring/2010
BY SELVI MUTHIAH
Selvi Muthiah is the Director of Crescent Early Enrichment Centre. Selvi has a Bachelor of Education (Special Education) with First Class Honours, a Diploma in Montessori Method of Education and has completed the Reggio Emilia Series from Meerilinga Training College.
DANIEL Goleman, Ph.D., is a well-known psychologist who has written broadly on the subject of Emotional Intelligence. He has identified five basic elements of Emotional Intelligence: self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and social skills. According to Goleman and other Emotional Intelligence experts, these elements are not automatically formed at birth, but can be taught and enhanced throughout a person’s lifetime.
In schools for example, bullies generally fail to recognise their own feelings of insecurity or unhappiness and display aggressiveness towards other children. Schools should include in their curriculum to verbalise emotions rather than ignore them. Children should learn to recognise and identify their own feelings. They should be able to manage their emotions effectively.
Research that widely addresses the growing problem of bullying in schools today reveals that many of these youngsters are less equipped to “read” people’s expressions and often misunderstand facial clues, which results in them feeling hurt, belittled or insulted.
Holding a mirror and encouraging children to display different facial expressions to suit different scenarios are just some ways to help young children express their feelings and to better understand the expressions of others and to respect their feelings. Self-awareness and being able to recognise and identify a feeling is essential to a child’s emotional development. In order for children to be able to manage their emotions, they need to first know what it is that they are feeling. Stories and dramas are especially useful in helping children name emotions and in giving them language to express their feelings.
Children can be taught various strategies from a young age to effectively manage their emotions, such as taking a deep breath, counting to 10 and controlling one’s desire to tell someone off.
Sharing stories and books is a wonderful way to help children understand themselves, the people around them and the world in which they live. Sharing books and re-enacting a life experience with puppets provides children with a range of words that they can use to express their feelings.
Motivating oneself is another important element of emotional intelligence for it builds on managing one’s emotions to the extent that they can delay the immediate gratification of an impulse and can maintain a positive outlook.
A group of four-year-olds at a preschool was presented with the challenge to either resist or succumb to the impulse to take the marshmallow when told not to. They were instructed to wait for their marshmallow reward as the experimenter left the room.
Some of the children were able to wait and in order to sustain themselves they undertook various strategies such as closing their eyes, playing with their fingers, resting with their hands in their arms, talking to themselves, singing and even trying to go to sleep. These preschoolers who had the resistance skill were rewarded with two marshmallows. However, the more impulsive ones grabbed the one marshmallow almost within seconds of the experimenter leaving the room.
When the children were tracked later in their adolescence, the children who were able to delay their impulse had a greater intellectual potential. This study demonstrates the importance of emotional intelligence and also demonstrates that it can be cultivated. Emotional skills can be learned from a young age.
Literature is an excellent source of inspiration and motivation for young children. Parents and educators need to work together. Like the other elements of emotional intelligence, empathy can be learned and parents and schools should educate children from the early years to try and put themselves in someone else’s shoes and examine their feelings in that situation. Stories such as The rainbow fish and Marvin wanted more provide ample opportunities for educators to teach young children how to handle relationships or social skills such as sharing, interacting with others and what is admirable and what is shameful behaviour.
While emotional intelligence is certainly not a cure-all for all the problems that exist in the world today, it is undoubtedly a crucial factor in many global personal issues today such as road rage, child abuse, bullying in schools, school shootings and juvenile crimes. These are just a few of the serious problems in our society today that raising children’s emotional intelligence can address.
Good books, puppets and role-modelling have an important role to play in helping children to manage emotions. They create role models for them to look up to and characters to avoid. Developing emotional intelligence in young children helps them to become more intelligent human beings and puts them in touch with their humanity.
--Published in Offspring magazine Spring/2010