Emotionally intelligent parents can use self-awareness to build better relationships with their children.
Much of what we say and do as parents springs from what we think and how we feel. We can improve our parenting, as well as our relationships with our children, by strengthening our emotional intelligence.
Being emotionally intelligent gives us the skills we need to name how we feel, and to use that information to manage how we behave and interact with others. Paul and Layne Cutright ,of The Center for Enlighted Partnerships, have developed an exercise called the CURE (Conscious Upset Resolution Exercise) that can help us understand our feelings, their triggers and the resulting behaviors (see below).
With practice we can notice "bad behavior" (screaming at our children, name-calling, belittling, etc.) and its triggers. In time we can begin to understand triggers (their history and the feelings they produce in us), defuse them and resolve our upset in positive ways that help us take care of ourselves and protect our relationships with our children.
The CURE (developed by Paul and Layne Cutright)
Practice walking yourself through a few of the CURE questions to improve your emotional intelligence (there are thirteen in all).
- I am feeling...
- I am thinking...
- I am upset because...
- The thoughts, attitudes and feelings I hold that contribute to this current upset...
