Emotional Intelligence in Children: Definition and Components

Updated:June 25, 2025 | Published:June 23, 2025 | ByPamela Li

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to accurately perceive, interpret, manage, and respond to one’s own and others’ emotions. Emotional intelligence for kids forms the foundation for social competence, emotional regulation, behavioral self-regulation, reduced risk of internalizing symptoms such as depression. Universal social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions in early childhood education settings are correlated with improved emotional competence, social skills, behavioral challenges, and academic performance, according to a 2018 meta-analysis titled “Social and Emotional Learning Associated With Universal Curriculum-Based Interventions in Early Childhood Education and Care Centers,” by Claire Blewitt et al., published in JAMA Network Open.

The five primary components of emotional intelligence proposed by Daniel Goleman in his 1998 book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The five components were refined into four domains, self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and relationship management, according to “Clustering competence in emotional intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI),” by Richard Boyatzis et al., published in Handbook of Emotional Intelligence in 2000.

To teach children emotional intelligence, recognize a child’s emotions, view emotions as opportunities to connect, listen to and validate a child’s feelings, label emotions, and guide the child in problem solving.

Why is emotional intelligence important? Emotional intelligence is important because EI strongly predicts a child’s interpersonal effectiveness, emotional resilience, mental health, academic performance, and future occupational success. An emotionally intelligent child copes with emotionally charged situations without maladaptive responses, such as aggression or withdrawal.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to accurately recognize, understand, regulate, and use emotions effectively in oneself and others to facilitate cognitive activities, interpersonal communication, and problem solving. Emotional intelligence is often referred to as emotional quotient (EQ).

Emotional intelligence is a multifaceted concept that is often viewed in two different perspectives: ability or mixed model. Ability models consider emotional intelligence as a pure form of mental ability, therefore a pure intelligence. Mixed models combine mental capacity with personality traits. Most researchers agree that emotion-related abilities or competencies can be developed and influence important life outcomes, including social competence, success, and mental well-being, regardless of which model is concerned.

What is the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Childhood Development?

Emotional intelligence is important in childhood development because EI lays the foundation for a child’s emotional regulation, academic performance, emotional well-being, and ability to form healthy relationships throughout lives. Emotional intelligence encompasses a set of skills that influence cognitive, psychological, social, and overall growth.

Children with high emotional intelligence tend to have more effective and flexible emotional regulation strategies, according to a 2015 study titled “Integrating emotion regulation and emotional intelligence traditions: a meta-analysis,” by Ainize Peña-Sarrionandia, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Better emotional intelligence development in children is associated with less emotional reactivity. Such children are calmer during stressful situations, solve problems more effectively, and show greater resilience in adversity.

Emotional intelligence in children is a strong predictor of children’s academic performance, according to a 2023 study from Spain titled “Emotional intelligence and academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” conducted by Alberto Quílez-Robres et al. at University of Zaragoza and published in Thinking Skills and Creativity.

Emotionally intelligent children tend to show less aggression or antisocial behavior, according to a 2014 study from Spain titled “The relationships between Emotional Intelligence and Aggression: A Systematic Review,” conducted by García-Sancho, E. et al. at University of Malaga and published in Aggression and Violent Behavior.

Researchers found that emotional intelligence explains up to 44% of the variance in psychosocial adjustment in school-aged children, according to a 2019 study from Spain titled “Pathways Into Psychosocial Adjustment in Children: Modeling the Effects of Trait Emotional Intelligence, Social-Emotional Problems, and Gender,” by Jose A. Piqueras et al., published in Frontiers in psychology.

Emotional intelligence is highly predictive of health in adolescents and adults, according to a 2010 study titled “A comprehensive meta-analysis of the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and health,” by Alexandra Martins et al., published in Personality and Individual Differences.

What is an example of a situation where a child with low emotional intelligence responds differently than a child with high emotional intelligence? For example, a child with low emotional intelligence is easily overwhelmed by challenging homework and say things like, “I’m so dumb” or “I can’t do anything.” The less emotionally intelligent child likely refuses help from a parent, leading to a full shutdown. A child with high emotional intelligence, however, persists with the homework and reassures themselves, “This is very hard, but I will figure it out.” The emotionally intelligent child is more likely to stay calm enough to try a new approach or ask for help.

What Are The Components of Emotional Intelligence in Children?

The five components of emotional intelligence in children are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Here are the five primary components of EI.

1. Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the capacity to consciously notice, recognize, and assess one’s own emotional states, capacities, limitations, principles, objectives, and internal experiences. Self-awareness allows a child to identify their feelings, reflect on their emotional responses, and understand how these emotions influence their behavior. Self-awareness begins forming in early childhood.

For example, a self-aware child who feels anxious before a class presentation and identifies this emotion as anxiety takes deep breaths to calm himself down. The breathing exercises help them manage their nervousness, resulting in improved attention, performance, and peer engagement.

2. Self-regulation

Self-regulation is the ability to monitor, control, adapt, and manage one’s emotional responses, behavior, and impulses in alignment with situational demands, personal goals, and social expectations. Effective self-regulation allows children to suppress impulsive reactions, navigate social interactions, and apply coping strategies during stress. Self-regulation is a critical executive functioning required for academic readiness, interpersonal relationships, and psychological well-being.

Self-regulation relies on the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. This capacity begins forming in infancy and continues developing through adolescence. The prefrontal cortex does not complete developing until the mid- to late-twenties. The development of self-regulation is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.

For example, a self-regulated child takes deep breaths when feeling frustrated during a group activity to calm themselves. A regulated child solves problems by working collaboratively with others rather than acting out.

3. Motivation

Motivation is the intrinsic emotional capability to initiate, sustain, and direct goal-oriented behaviors through positive emotions and internal reinforcement. Motivation is a self-regulatory mechanism that enables perseverance and adaptive functioning, especially when encountering challenges. Intrinsic motivation, driven by personal interest and satisfaction, is associated with creativity, engagement, and resilience. Intrinsic motivation enables self-directed learning. Self-motivated children are optimistic despite failure and work continuously toward long-term goals.

For example, an intrinsically motivated student persistently solves complex math problems despite repeated errors. The emotionally intelligent and motivated child demonstrates emotional resilience and intrinsic achievement motivation.

4. Empathy

Empathy is the socio-emotional capacity to perceive, interpret, and respond to the emotional states of others with attuned sensitivity and appropriate concern. Empathy encompasses both affective empathy (emotional resonance) and cognitive empathy (perspective-taking). An empathic child shows an internalized understanding of others emotional experiences and a capacity to act in ways that promote social harmony.

Empathy is critical in prosocial behavior and moral development in children. Empathy begins to emerge in infancy and becomes more sophisticated through early childhood. Empathy is shaped by neural maturation, attachment quality, and social learning experiences. Empathy enables children to form meaningful social connections, reduce aggressive behavior, and navigate peer dynamics with emotional sensitivity.

For example, an empathic child observes a classmate in distress and offers a comforting gesture or shares resources. An emotionally intelligent and empathic child possesses cognitive awareness and affective responsiveness.

5. Social skills

Social skills are the learned interpersonal abilities that enable children to initiate, maintain, and navigate social interactions in a cooperative and emotionally attuned manner. Social skills are essential for relationship-building, group participation, and conflict negotiation. Social competence is strongly predictive of an individual’s long-term academic, emotional, and occupational outcomes. Social skills allow children to interpret social cues, engage in reciprocal interactions, and apply appropriate behaviors in various contexts.

For example, a child with good social skills practices turn-taking, listens actively to peers, and resolves disagreement respectfully in a group project. The cooperative behavior promotes group cohesion, mutual respect, and positive peer relationships.

What Are The Four Dimensions of Emotional Intelligence?

The four dimensions of emotional intelligence are emotion perception, utilization, comprehension, and regulation, according to the framework proposed by Peter Salovey (Yale University) and John D. Mayer (University of New Hampshire) in a 1990 study titled “Emotional Intelligence”, published in Imagination, Cognition and Personality.

• Emotion Perception: The ability to accurately identify emotions in oneself and others, as well as in objects, art, stories, music, and other stimuli.
• Emotion Utilization: The ability to generate, use, and feel emotion as necessary to communicate feelings or employ them in other cognitive processes like reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making.
• Emotion Comprehension: The ability to understand emotional information, how emotions combine and progress, and how emotions transition through relationship changes. Emotion comprehension includes understanding the emotional lexicon.
• Emotion Regulation: The ability to regulate moods and emotions in oneself and in other people. Emotion regulation involves monitoring, discriminating, and labeling feelings accurately, believing the ability to modify feelings, employing strategies to alter feelings, and assessing the effectiveness of the regulating strategies.

What are the Benefits of Emotional Intelligence in Children?

The benefits of emotional intelligence in children include stronger relationships, improved school performance, enhanced mental well-being, more effective decision making, and greater future success. Here are the five benefits of emotional intelligence in children.

• Stronger Relationships: Emotionally intelligent children have better social competence. Children with high emotional intelligence have the ability to form, maintain, and deepen interpersonal relationships.
• Improved School Performance: Emotionally intelligent children have better focus and sustained attention. The stronger self-regulation skills enable children to manage emotional distractions, such as anxiety, frustration, or boredom, which often disrupt cognitive processing.
• Enhanced Mental Well-being: Emotionally intelligent children learn healthy ways to regulate and express emotions, preventing them from being overwhelmed by anger, sadness, or anxiety. Children who understand and regulate their emotions are less likely to act out in frustration or anger, resulting in fewer behavioral problems.
• Effective Decision Making: High emotional intelligence allows children to better understand their emotions, assess situations more accurately and make more thoughtful and informed decisions. Emotionally intelligent kids approach challenges with a calmer and more rational mindset, enabling them to identify solutions and persevere.
• Future Success: The ability to understand, inspire, and motivate others emotionally lays the groundwork for future leadership roles. Emotional intelligence is highly important in determining success in professional life. Children who have the tools to navigate relationships, manage stress, and make sound decisions tend to have more fulfilling and well-adusted lives.

What are the Challenges in Developing Emotional Intelligence in Children?

The challenges in developing emotional intelligence in children include the lack of emotionally intelligent role models, environment, developmental differences, cultural influences, lack of emotional vocabulary, and misconceptions.

Here are the six challenges in developing emotional intelligence in children.

• Lack of Emotionally Intelligent Role Models: Parents and caregivers shape a child’s emotional landscape. Stressed parents often find it difficult to engage in emotion coaching or provide consistent emotional support for emotional intelligence development. Children lack consistent and healthy examples to emulate if adults struggle with emotional regulation, empathy, or expression themselves.
• Environment and Upbringing: Children exposed to neglect, abuse, or inconsistent parenting often struggle with recognizing, understanding, and managing their emotions. Children who don’t feel safe to express their emotions without fear of punishment or judgment internalize or suppress their feelings, hindering emotional awareness development.
• Developmental Differences: Children with a sensitive or reactive temperament naturally have a harder time navigating emotional experiences. Some neurodevelopmental conditions affect a child’s ability to develop emotional intelligence. Those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exhibit difficulties in interpreting facial expressions, understanding emotional cues, or engaging in perspective-taking. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often struggle with impulse control, emotional reactivity, and sustained attention, all of which are required for emotional intelligence development. Speech and language delays make it harder for children to articulate their feelings or understand emotional vocabulary.
• Cultural and Societal Influences: Some cultures discourage the open expression of certain emotions, such as sadness or anger, leading to suppression and difficulty in processing those feelings. Educational systems that prioritize academic achievement over socio-emotional learning often lack EI teaching. Excessive screen time reduces in-person social interaction, which is required for developing non-verbal cues reading, empathy, and conflict resolution skills.
• Lack of Emotional Vocabulary: Children who are not taught the words to describe their feelings often struggle to identify what they experience or communicate their emotions effectively.
• Misconceptions About Emotional Intelligence: Many adults hold misconceptions about emotional intelligence hindering its development in children. Some parents believe that allowing children to express all their emotions encourages negativity. Others equate the acceptance of difficult emotions, such as anger and sadness, with condoning inappropriate behavior. Some adults feel that avoiding conversations about negative emotions will cause them to disappear. None of these is true. Parents must understand that all emotions are valid and deserve to be acknowledged for children to process them in a healthy way.

What is the Role of Parents in Developing Emotional Intelligence in Children?

Parents play an important role in children’s emotional intelligence development, as parents are a child’s first and most influential teachers. Parents often shape a child’s ability to understand, express, and manage emotions. Parent socialization of emotion is the process in which parents directly guide and indirectly model emotion-related behavior. The family environment lays the foundation for a child’s social and emotional well-being throughout life.

What is the role of educational systems in developing emotional intelligence in children?
Educational systems play an increasingly recognized role in developing emotional intelligence in children, complementing the foundational work of parents. Schools are unique environments where children interact with a diverse group of peers and adults, encounter new challenges, and navigate complex social dynamics daily. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programs teach children key emotional intelligence competencies. Students learn to identify and understand their own emotions, and develop strategies for managing them.

How can a Parent Teach Children Emotional Intelligence?

Parents can teach children emotional intelligence by recognizing a child’s emotions, viewing emotions as chances to connect, listening attentively and validating the child’s feelings, labeling emotions, and guiding children in problem-solving. Here are five ways to teach children about emotional intelligence.

1. Recognize a Child’s Emotions

Recognizing a child’s emotions involves accurately identifying and understanding children’s verbal and non-verbal emotional expressions. Being able to perceive a child’s emotions promotes the child’s emotional awareness, healthy communication, and the development of empathy and self-regulation skills.

2. View Emotions as Chances to Connect and Educate

Viewing emotions as chances to connect and educate promotes secure attachment, and enhances parent-child communication, leading to healthier social and emotional development.

3. Listen Attentively and Validate a Child’s Feelings

Listening attentively involves active engagement, empathetic hearing, and non-judgmental acknowledgment of a child’s verbal and non-verbal cues. Validating a child’s feelings affirms the child’s emotional experiences, raising self-awareness, and facilitating healthy emotional regulation.

4. Label Emotions

Labeling emotions teaches children to recognize and name their feelings, such as anger, sadness, or happiness. This emotion coaching process improves emotional awareness, emotional regulation, and social interactions, forming a foundation for developing emotional intelligence in children.

5. Guide Children in Problem-Solving within Set Boundaries

Guiding children in problem-solving within set boundaries is providing structured support and clear parameters to facilitate critical thinking, while ensuring safety and appropriate behavior. Children are encouraged to develop cognitive and independent problem-solving skills in a safe and supportive environment.

What are the Factors Affecting Emotional Intelligence in Children?

Factors affecting emotional intelligence in children include parenting styles, emotional expression at home, social environment, educational settings, genetics, cultures, trauma, and technology. Here are the 8 factors that affect emotional intelligence development in kids.

• Parenting Style: Parenting style is the consistent emotional climate and behavioral directive provided by parents or caregivers. Parenting styles are categorized into authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful styles. Parenting styles shape how children learn to understand, express, and regulate emotions in social contexts. The consistency, responsiveness, and emotional attunement of the type of parenting directly impact a child’s neurobiological and social-emotional development.
• Emotional Expression at Home: Emotional expression at home is the ways family members communicate and share their feelings, including verbal and non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language. Emotional expression at home shapes children’s ability to recognize, understand, and regulate emotions.
• Social Environment: Social environment encompasses peer relationships, family dynamics, neighborhood, and cultural norms. A social environment provides interpersonal interactions that develop social skills, empathy, emotional regulation, and self-awareness.
• Educational Settings: Educational settings include formal schools, preschool programs, special education environments, and alternative learning centers. Educational settings affect emotional intelligence development through social interactions, emotional support, and classroom climate.
• Genetics and Temperament: Genetics involve hereditary factors influencing brain development and neural pathways related to emotional processing. Temperament is the innate, enduring personality traits such as emotional reactivity and self-regulation. Temperamental traits shape how children perceive and manage emotions, impacting their emotional intelligence development.
• Cultural Influences: Cultural influences affect emotional intelligence in children by shaping emotional expression, regulation, and understanding. Cultural influences and social norms influence the communication styles that children learn to navigate the society.
• Trauma and Adversity: Trauma and adversity are experiences of significant psychological or environmental stressors, such as abuse, neglect, or socioeconomic hardship. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) impair emotional regulation, empathy, and social skills. Trauma disrupts the development of emotional self-awareness and regulation. The acquisition of adaptive social responses is disrupted, impairing emotional intelligence.
• Media and Technology: Media and Technology include digital devices, internet platforms, and communication tools. Media and technology affects social skills, empathy development, and emotional regulation through reduced face-to-face interactions.

Can Childhood Trauma Affect Emotional Intelligence in Children?

Childhood trauma can impair emotional regulation and social cognition, leading to deficits in emotional intelligence. The development of empathy, emotion recognition, and emotional self-awareness are hindered by trauma in childhood.

Is Emotional Intelligence a Key in Child Psychology for Addressing Children’s Behavior?

Yes, emotional intelligence is a key component in child psychology for addressing children’s behavior, as EI influences emotion regulation, social competence, and behavioral adjustment. Evidence suggests that higher emotional intelligence correlates with better social skills and fewer behavioral problems, leading to less externalizing symptoms according to child psychology research.

What is the Relation of ADHD and Emotional Intelligence in Children?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity impacting executive functioning.ADHD in children is often associated with challenges in emotional Intelligence, including difficulties in emotional regulation, empathy, and social functioning. The cause of ADHD involves genetic predispositions, dopaminergic pathway irregularities, and environmental risk factors such as prenatal exposure to toxins.