Intelligence, Awareness, And Literacy: Supporting Emotional Development In Adolescence

Adolescents typically undergo tremendous physical, cognitive, and emotional development while simultaneously experiencing new things and learning skills that may benefit them throughout their lives. Being a parent or caregiver to an adolescent can be equally as exciting as it is confusing, especially when trying to support their growth. It can be important to provide your child with the skills they need to succeed as both a teenager and an adult. Working with a therapist in person or online can help you instill healthy emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy skills in your adolescent.

What are emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy?

Recognizing your feelings, understanding how they affect your mood and behavior, and expressing your emotional needs to the essential people in your life can be vital skills to have at any age. However, these skills may be particularly useful for adolescents as they learn how to function in interpersonal relationships.

Since adolescents often experience a wide range of emotions, it can be important for them to be able to name what they’re feeling and understand how their emotions affect them. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains, “Some adolescents may be excited to take on new challenges as they become more independent, whereas others may need more support to build their confidence. The process of emotional development gives adolescents the opportunity to build skills, discover unique qualities, and develop strengths for optimal health.”

Emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy are generally three vital skills that parents can begin to teach their kids from a young age. Here, we’ll explore the meanings of each one in more detail.

1. Emotional intelligence: According to the American Psychological Association, emotional intelligence (EQ) typically refers to one’s ability to process information about their feelings and use that knowledge for cognitive and reasoning activities. EQ can help people use their emotions to navigate their lives and relationships effectively and productively.
2. Emotional awareness: One of the primary facets of EQ may be emotional awareness, or how well a person can identify and understand their own emotions and the feelings of others. Emotional awareness can make it easier to relate to and communicate with others. 
3. Emotional literacy: Someone with a well-developed sense of emotional literacy can adequately communicate their needs and feelings to others, making it possible to maintain healthy, reciprocal relationships. 

Exploring emotional development in adolescence

Throughout adolescence, children and teens may gradually improve their ability to perceive, assess, and manage their own and others’ emotions. While everyone may experience and learn about feelings throughout their lives, this process often begins in early adolescence and continues through the transition to adulthood. 

Establishing a framework for adult emotional function

As they grow, develop emotionally, and mature, adolescents usually expand their understanding of emotions, how they affect people, and practical ways to communicate their feelings and needs to others.

The emotional skills an adolescent develops can provide them with a foundational structure for how they experience and process their emotions as an adult. Therefore, it can be vital for the adults in their life to guide them toward emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy from a young age.

Learning how to manage negative emotions

Adverse situations often cause intense emotions throughout adolescent development. A well-developed sense of emotional intelligence can help teenagers learn healthy, practical ways to comprehend and process their feelings, enabling them to use coping skills to manage their negative emotions. 

Recognizing their own emotions

Emotional intelligence may offer insight into a person’s own emotions and can provide information like

• When and why they are experiencing those feelings
• Whether those feelings are having a positive, neutral, or negative effect on mood and behavior
• How to cope with specific emotions in healthy ways

Identifying how others feel

Interpersonal communication can play a large role in emotional development in adolescence. As they learn to recognize and process complex emotions, your teenager will likely improve their ability to identify others’ feelings and demonstrate appropriate emotional responses.

Effectively expressing their needs and feeling

Emotional literacy can help individuals find ways to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and needs to the people in their lives. Being able to tell your loved ones how you feel and what you need to be loved and supported can boost your self-esteem and help you build stronger, more complex relationships. 

How does emotional development help adolescents?

Children who develop emotionally as they grow older may benefit in some or all of the following ways: 

• Building emotional skills
• Discovering unique traits and qualities
• Learning their likes, dislikes, and stressors
• Making and maintaining stronger relationships
• Improving decision-making skills
• Navigating difficult situations
• Learning how to understand and respond to others’ feelings
• Reducing stress levels
• Empathizing with how others feel
• Communicating effectively
• Managing and resolving conflicts productively
• Adapting to changing circumstances
• Enhancing emotional resilience

How can parents support healthy emotional development in adolescence?

As a parent or caregiver, you may wonder what you can do to support your child’s emotional development so they can grow into functional adults. Consider implementing some of these tips to help your adolescent through the complex emotions of their teenage years. 

Model healthy emotional function, compromise, and conflict resolution

In general, you are your child’s first and most influential role model. If you model healthy emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy from an early age, they may grow up with those habits as second nature. Teaching your child to communicate, compromise, and resolve conflicts productively can lay the groundwork for adolescent development. 

Promote self-confidence and healthy self-esteem

Build your adolescent up, promoting self-esteem, self-confidence, and a healthy sense of their own identity. Prioritize spending time with your teenager and showing them that they are important to you.  

Encourage them to embrace and process their feelings

The teenage years can be a confusing time. Life can change rapidly during these years, and teens often feel many complex emotions simultaneously. Encourage your adolescent to embrace their feelings and explore the process they use to understand their emotions. Help your child find healthy ways to process their feelings to function in daily life and relationships. Additionally, try to maintain open lines of communication and check in with them often so you can gauge their emotional state. 

Foster calm, steady reactions to stressful situations

Teaching your child to react to stressful situations with a calm, steady response can serve them throughout their lives, helping them navigate challenges and communicate effectively through problems. 

Work through conflicts together

You’re likely to face many conflicts with your teenager, but if you work through those issues together with communication, compromise, and productive support, you can model this as the standard way to approach problems.

Practice daily self-care and emphasize its importance

One of the most effective ways to support your adolescent's development and overall well-being may be to let them see you practicing daily self-care, healthy emotional function, and physical, mental, and emotional health. In many cases, children naturally follow in their parents’ footsteps, modeling what they were shown growing up.

As the Center for Parent and Teen Communication explains, “Setting aside our own well-being in an effort to give more to our children does not help them. Caring for yourself, with the same faithfulness with which you care about your children is anything but a selfish act. Self-care is a strategic act of good parenting.”

Challenges to emotional development in the adolescent brain

Adolescent brains are usually still physically developing, and your teenager may experience some challenges to their emotional development as they grow. These obstacles could include: 

• Stress: Young people are often exposed to a variety of environments as they grow up, which may cause them to experience a wide range of stressors affecting their emotional development. 
• Neurochemistry: Significant fluctuations in neurochemistry and hormones may come with the physical changes in adolescence, which can affect a teenager's mood and lead to emotional intensity. 
• Eating disorders: Studies show that many adolescents with eating disorders struggle with awareness of their emotions or the ability to understand and regulate their feelings. 
• Mental health conditions: Some mental health conditions emerge during adolescence, and the symptoms of these disorders can affect how teens develop emotionally. 
• Identity development: Your teenager is likely working to form their identity, questioning their values, and experiencing ever-shifting passions. Experimentation can be a regular part of adolescence, but it doesn't always occur with balance or thoughtfulness as teens gauge how to manage and control their emotional reactions. 
• Lack of positive peer relationships: A significant portion of adolescent emotional development can involve their peers. If they don't have positive peer relationships, it can be difficult for young people to develop the social and emotional skills they need to function as adults. 

Benefits of online therapy

Many parents and caregivers can benefit from the emotional support and guidance of a licensed therapist. If you need help teaching your adolescent emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy, consider working with a licensed therapist online through a virtual therapy platform like BetterHelp. Online therapy offers a way to receive care and guidance without sacrificing extra time to drive to an office location. Through video chats, phone calls, or in-app messaging, individuals can connect with their therapist at anytime from anywhere. 

If your child would like to meet with a therapist, TeenCounseling provides online services for those aged 13 to 19. 

Effectiveness of online therapy

Online therapy can be equally as effective as in-person therapy for addressing a variety of concerns. For example, a 2022 meta-analysis revealed there were generally no differences in client outcomes between online and in-office therapy. 

Takeaway 

Emotional development can be a vital part of children's growth and maturation during adolescence. The emotional intelligence, awareness, and literacy that a child develops as they grow up can affect their well-being in adolescence and beyond. Parents can play a vital role in their child’s development by providing a foundational framework in which their child can process, understand, and express their emotions effectively. Online therapy can be instrumental during this time, particularly for parents and caregivers who would like extra support navigating the teen years.