Raising Emotionally Intelligent Kids Through Play

How do we raise emotionally intelligent children?On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet sits down with Kelli McCarty, a marriage and family therapist and founder of Toys With Intent, to discuss the ways in which we can raise emotionally intelligent children, how play factors into emotional intelligence in our young children, and Kelli’s top tips and resources for integrating social/emotional development and social cognition into play. The basic takeaway? It really comes down to intentionality in the tools we choose to use in our parenting and in our homes. Quick access to links in this episode:1-2-3 A Calmer Me: Helping Children Cope When Emotions Get Out Of Control, by Colleen Patterson (affiliate link)The Whole-Brain Child, by Dan Siegel (affiliate link)Slumberkins (affiliate link)Generation Mindful and the Time-In Tool Kit Generation Mindful’s mindfulness card games (affiliate link)The Moodsters storybooks (affiliate link)EQTainment board game (affiliate link)CONNECT WITH US!Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / YouTubeKelli: Website / Facebook / InstagramText transcript of this episodeAyelet: Welcome to episode 65 of the Learn With Less podcast. Today I’m speaking with Kelli McCarty, a marriage and family therapist who has worked in schools and in the mental health field for over 10 years. Kelli now runs Toys With Intent, a website dedicated to providing social and emotional resources for families with young children and with teens. Her mission is to help parents raise children to be more emotionally intelligent and to help parents become more intentional about the toys and products they bring into their homes. Kelli, thank you so much for being here and welcome to Learn With Less.Kelli: Thank you so much, I’m so happy to be here.Ayelet: So I have asked you to come onto the show today to speak about raising emotionally intelligent children. But first I’d just love to hear a bit more about you and how you got into the work that you’re doing today.Kelli: Sure! As you heard in the introduction, I am a marriage and family therapist and former school counselor, and a mother, too. And I really started Toys With Intent kind of wrapping all those experiences together, but mostly because I was kind of, for lack of a better word, appalled at some of the toys and products and books out there for children. There seemed to be a lack of educational and healthy toys and products out there that really enhance children’s development or they were really hard to find, and I would often get these kind of pointless toys or books that were given to my children that didn’t really have a positive message, either. So I basically wanted to do something about that.