What is the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Students? | Varthana

What is the Importance of Emotional Intelligence for Students

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In today’s world, more emphasis is given to emotional intelligence, and though this concept has been around for many decades, it is resurging nowadays due to its tremendous benefits. However, there are still many people who are not aware of emotional intelligence and its benefits in the real world.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify, evaluate, manage, and express emotions effectively and positively. This concept teaches the power of understanding and managing emotions. It involves skill sets that enable people to use their emotional awareness to make decisions, communicate better, reduce anxiety, resolve conflict, and improve relationships.

Childhood is a crucial period when humans grow rapidly – physically and emotionally. Emotions make us human. It’s the moral responsibility of teachers to inculcate emotional intelligence in students, as it helps them develop social and emotional skills. By using social-emotional skills, students learn to understand who they are, what they feel, and what to expect when interacting with others.

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What are the 6 Benefits of Developing Emotional Intelligence in Students?

These are some benefits of developing emotional intelligence in students:

1. Increased self-awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to identify one’s own emotions, values, and thoughts and how they influence actions. This ability helps students to assess their strengths and weaknesses with a sense of optimism and a growth mindset.

Children are still learning how to put words to difficult emotions they feel. They may not understand why they are feeling upset or angry. In such situations, self-awareness helps students identify emotions and triggers. It helps them label, take a pause, and think about their actions and respond instead of reacting, which helps students think rationally.

It benefits students by developing a growth mindset and self-confidence and makes them more optimistic. They start taking charge of their mistakes and learn proactively.

Also Read: 5 Mental Health Tips For School Leaders

2. Better academic performance and classroom behavior

Emotional intelligence helps students cope with emotions in an academic environment. Students can feel anxious due to exams, and disappointed due to poor outcomes at times. They can feel frustrated and bored while learning if the subject matter is not interesting. Sometimes, this causes negative self-talk, leading to a decline in their confidence.

Emotional intelligence helps identify and understand those emotions and their root cause, and helps students manage them in a very positive way so it doesn’t interfere with learning. It develops self-regulation in students.

Reflection is the foundation of self-regulation, which helps students reflect on their experiences, thoughts, needs, and mistakes and use that learning in their academic and personal life. This allows students to accomplish tasks, reach goals, and develop healthy habits. Self-regulation helps students to be more goal-oriented and improve their focus.

According to a research on SEL (social-emotional learning), skills showed a 9% improvement in classroom behaviour and a 10% decrease in emotional distress. Research shows that emotionally intelligent students get better exam results and exam grades.

3. Improve communication skills and relationship building

Emotionally intelligent students develop compassion for themselves and others. Compassion makes them understand others’ feelings and see things from others’ perspectives. The key to developing lasting and positive relationships is compassion. A child who is in tune with their emotional side, however, acts from a place of empathy.

This makes the child show less hurtful actions and be more supportive towards their peers. Emotional intelligence makes students express their views and ideas without hesitation, which helps them develop communication skills and better interpersonal relationships.

4. Self-regulation

Reflection is the foundation of self-regulation, which helps students reflect on their experiences, thoughts, needs, and mistakes, and use that learning in their academic and personal life. This allows students to accomplish tasks, reach goals, and develop healthy habits.

Planning, performance, and reflection are the steps to developing self-regulation in students. Self-regulation helps students be more goal-oriented and improve their focus.

5. Better problem-solving skills

Emotional intelligence helps students analyze situations better. It also helps them stay calm and think critically in challenging situations, leading to an improvement in their problem-solving skills. Problem-solving includes the ability to understand how emotions impact decision-making.

Students with low emotional intelligence typically avoid dealing with challenges, use unstructured strategies, ignore emotional signals, and usually feel overwhelmed. Those who have high emotional intelligence consider the pros and cons before taking action. They learn from past experiences and apply those learnings in problem-solving. Such students are less likely to give up due to problems and are more consistent with their efforts.

6. Better stress management

Academic performance pressure, social background, homework, and relationships with peers and teachers may cause stress in students. This stress can significantly affect the health, happiness, relationships, and grades of students. Stress is a major obstacle when students are learning something new and developing a perspective for their surrounding world.

If left unaddressed, stress persists in a student’s academic and personal life. A student who can manage their emotions well is one that will not allow stress to rule their academic life. Uncontrolled stress is often associated with physical and mental disorders.

Effective coping strategies such as meditation, sports, good nutrition, relaxation, humor, and fun-filled activities help reduce the effects of stress (Ugoji, 2012).

What are Different Activities to Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students?

There are many activities teachers can do to develop emotional intelligence, like

  1. Yoga and meditation
  2. Journaling and reflection 
  3. Identify and associate with values 
  4. Acknowledge feelings 
  5. Notice body sensations

FAQ:

1. How does emotional intelligence affect students?

Emotional intelligence helps students by making them more aware of themselves and others, improving relationships and overall well-being. Varthana’s school loans support schools not just academically but also address mental health, focusing on emotions. With personalized teacher training and better communication, Varthana helps students grow overall.

2. How do you teach students emotional intelligence?

Teaching emotional intelligence involves activities and discussions to build skills like self-awareness, empathy, and social abilities.

3. Why is it important for children to learn emotional intelligence?

It’s important for children to learn emotional intelligence as it helps them handle emotions, make friends, and navigate social situations for a healthy emotional foundation.

4. What are the skills of emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence skills include self-awareness, self-control, empathy, social skills, and motivation, all crucial for personal and social success.

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