A child screams over a broken toy, fights over the swing, goes quiet and walks off to his room instead of talking. None of this is a "bad character" — it is a missing skill: he cannot yet recognise, name and bear his own feelings. This skill — emotional intelligence — is taught the same way as reading or counting: gradually, on live examples, over years.

What is emotional intelligence and why does a child need it?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognise one's own and other people's emotions, to understand their causes, to put feelings into words and to cope with them without destroying oneself or others. The term was proposed in the early 1990s by the psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, and Daniel Goleman's book made it widely known.

In practice, for a child it means four things: he notices what is happening to him; he can say it in words; he knows how to calm down; he understands that the person next to him has different feelings. A child with a developed EQ takes refusal more easily, negotiates with peers more readily and resolves conflicts with his fists less often.

An important caveat: emotional intelligence is not the ability to always be nice, and not a technique for influencing people. Understanding other people's feelings can also serve manipulation. That is why we always tie work on emotions to ethics: a feeling is a signal, and how to answer it is a person's own choice — and that choice can be honest or dishonest.

From what age is it worth developing emotional intelligence?

You can start from the moment the child begins to react to your face and voice at all. What changes is not whether you work on it but what the child can manage. The milestones are approximate — children walk this road at different speeds.

How to teach a child to name his emotions?

While a feeling has no name, it runs the child. As soon as it has one, something can be done with it. The adult's task is to be a translator, not an examiner: not "tell me what emotion this is" but a calm guess out loud.

How to help a child cope with strong emotions?

The key point that changes everything: calm first, explain later. At the peak of an outburst a child is physically unable to take in arguments — a conversation about rules makes sense once the storm has passed.

If you boil over together with the child, you will have to start with yourself — that is a separate conversation: how not to lose your temper with your child.

How to develop empathy in a child?

Empathy is not pity and not a duty to rescue everyone. It is the ability to notice that someone else is unhappy and to take that into account in one's own choice. It grows out of two things: the experience of having one's own feelings noticed, and the habit of asking "and how is it for him?".

A separate, detailed treatment is in the article on developing empathy in children.

How to teach a child to talk about feelings rather than show them through behaviour?

Children act up, go silent, fight or "accidentally" break things when they cannot find the words. So the words have to be given — and it has to pay to use them: if after "I'm hurt" the child was listened to, behaviour gradually gives way to speech.

How to teach a child to resolve conflicts without shouting and fighting?

Conflict is not a malfunction but a normal part of relationships; the skill is not in avoiding it but in getting out of it without humiliating anyone. It helps to go through three steps together: say what is yours, hear the other, find a solution.

If conflicts go round in circles between brothers and sisters, see the case on sibling rivalry and children's jealousy.

Which parental mistakes hold back emotional intelligence?

What to do if nothing helps?

First: check the timescale. A noticeable shift in self-regulation takes months, not days, and setbacks with tiredness, illness, a move or the start of the school year are normal. Second: look at the basics — lack of sleep and hunger cancel out any technique, and often you have to start with the routine, not with a talk about feelings.

There are situations where home efforts are not enough and it is worth seeing a child psychologist: outbursts of aggression dangerous to the child or others; a sharp change in behaviour with no clear cause; the child systematically hurts himself; fears and anxiety interfere with sleeping, eating or going to school. Seeing a specialist is not an admission of failure but as sensible a step as a visit to the doctor.

And the main thing: a child learns to handle feelings above all from how you do it — how you get angry, apologise, ask for help and admit a mistake. It is long work, but it is exactly what gives a child a footing for life: to understand himself, to reckon with others and to choose his actions consciously.

Cases of specific scenes where these skills are needed here and now: "I'm stupid" and self-esteem, a first-grader who doesn't want to go to school, tears at nursery drop-off.