Anxiety and depression in adults and children continues to rise at an alarming rate. Many struggle just to make it through each day. And the reality is that life doesn’t get any easier. The stresses that we face are increasing and we need all our emotional strength to cope with them.

How do we bolster our emotional strength? Of course we must focus on everyone but it is vital to put most of our efforts towards our children and provide them with the tools that they need. Skills learned in childhood are the foundations upon which all other skills rest.

Teaching our children emotional intelligence is the greatest investment we can put into their futures. Our children are these wonderful little people who look to parents and educators for guidance. Open, not yet jaded or cynical, they see the value in being “nice” and feel real empathy when they have hurt someone’s feelings. They give us a head start and all we have to do is pick up on their cues and affirm their belief in goodness.

As parents, we feel comfortable focusing on the positive aspects of our children. We compliment them when they are happy and when they achieve something.

Instead, stop and listen. Children love to talk about all of their feelings. They instinctively do this and they are taught that it is wrong to do so. They know that all feelings, negative and positive, are a natural part of our human experience. As parents we must teach our children to accept the full spectrum of their feelings and teach them what to do with them. This is the essence of emotional intelligence.

Adults are almost afraid of negative feelings because they believe that this means their children are unhappy. We should welcome negative feelings as another opportunity for our children to learn about adversity, an inescapable fact of our existence. Ignoring these feelings gives these feelings a power that they shouldn’t have.

Finally, if it is success and achievements that we seek as parents, there can be no better way to make this happen than through raising our child’s emotional intelligence.

Take some time to read about emotional intelligence and how we can help our children develop characteristics that will greatly increase their chances for success and happiness.

Stay tuned because I will be providing lots of information, resources, and recommendations in future blogs!

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Marsha Jacobson is author of "Boom... Boom... Boom...: A Story to Raise Your Child's Emotional Intelligence". She is a regular contributor of mychildfeels.com and you can visit her website at marshajacobson.com.