Raising a child in today’s fast-paced, achievement-driven world is no small feat. While many parents focus on grades and extracurriculars, one of the most overlooked skills is emotional intelligence.

This doesn’t just help kids don’t excel socially; it helps them grow into resilient, empathetic, and successful adults who can navigate challenges with confidence, foster meaningful relationships, and lead fulfilling lives.

So, what do parents who raise emotionally intelligent kids do differently? After years of studying over 200 parent-child relationships — and from practicing healthy habits with my own child — I’ve uncovered seven powerful strategies that these parents embraced early on.

They gave their child space to process their feelings and trust their inner voice. When their child was upset, they sat quietly beside them, offering comfort without words. Embracing silence can help children better navigate and reflect on their emotions.

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By verbally sharing feelings — like “I’m frustrated” or “I’m happy” — they taught their children emotional awareness and gave them words to express themselves. This helped their children see emotions as normal and share them openly rather than suppressing them.

They showed their child that mistakes are part of life and taking responsibility is a strength. Apologizing built trust and showed respect, making their child feel valued. It also modeled empathy and taught them how to repair relationships.

This might sound unconventional, but they knew kindness and respect can’t be forced. Instead, they modeled these behaviors, trusting their child to learn by example. If their child forgot to say thank you, the parent said it for them, confident the lesson would stick over time.

This takes a lot of bravery! But as a parenting coach, I’ve never told my 6-year-old to say please or thank you. Now he says it all the time on his own — because he hears me say it.

They took their child’s concerns seriously, whether it was a lost toy or trouble with a friend. By validating their feelings, they showed their child that emotions matter. This fostered self-worth, emotional safety, and respect for their experiences.

The best way to teach decision-making is to encourage children to make their own decisions. Instead of fixing problems, they asked, “What do you think we should do?” This helped boost critical thinking, confidence, and independence.

They let their child get bored, which helped them become comfortable with stillness. This built creativity, self-regulation and problem-solving skills. Their child learned to enjoy their own company and find joy in simple moments, like staring out the car window instead of needing a screen.

• Modeling the behaviors you want to see: Express your emotions openly, apologize when you make mistakes, and show kindness and empathy in your interactions.
• Validate your child’s feelings, no matter how small they may seem, and give them the space to process those emotions without rushing to fix or dismiss them. 
• Encourage problem-solving by asking open-ended questions instead of providing all the answers.
• Let them experience moments of stillness or boredom to build creativity and self-regulation.

Most importantly, focus on building a relationship rooted in respect and trust — because emotional intelligence starts with feeling safe, valued, and understood.

Reem Raouda is a certified conscious parenting coach, mother, and creator of BOUND — the first and only parent-child connection journal designed to nurture emotional intelligence and self-worth in children. She has transformed hundreds of families through her courses, coaching and tools. Follow her on Instagram. 

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When Aron Olegnowicz-Cruz thinks about his future, he foresees getting his MBA and working in business. But for now, the 22-year-old works as a special education teacher at an elementary charter school in Columbus, Ohio.

Olegnowicz-Cruz is in his first of two years teaching with Teach for America , the nonprofit that recruits recent college grads to teach in underserved schools across the U.S.

Olegnowicz-Cruz, who studied political science and psychology at the Ohio State University and took a pre-MBA summer fellowship at Harvard Business School, hadn’t planned to teach. Then he learned about TFA from through the Association of Latino Professionals for America.

He learned that taking a teaching job today could help him achieve his personal and long-term career goals.

TFA has its fair share of critics, including those who say it fails to help low-income students access qualified teachers, and that corp members’ two-year commitments accelerate turnover in areas that need stability. Meanwhile, supporters say the program brings people from elite backgrounds into the classroom and can encourage a new wave of leaders to join the education system overall.

Teaching isn’t exactly a low-stakes profession: It’s notorious for its low pay, burnout rates and staff shortages.

For its part, TFA has worked to address common challenges and appeal to Gen Z college grads, who like Olegnowicz-Cruz are increasingly concerned about their post-college financial stability and work-life balance while making a meaningful, positive impact early in their careers.

Though he had the option to teach in Miami or New York, Olegnowicz-Cruz was happy to learn that he could stay and teach in Columbus, where he says having friends and family nearby have helped him avoid the post-college isolation of moving to a new community.

Plus, he says his $49,000 yearly starting salary helps him live comfortably there, whereas he felt the local pay in pricier cities wouldn’t have stretched as far.

“I am a big advocate of diving into the unknown and the thrill of meeting new people in a new chapter,” he says. “But I also understand that in the undertaking of a job as emotionally demanding as teaching, especially in an underserved school, I wanted to make those factors a little bit easier on myself and stick with something that would bring me comfort.”

Olegnowicz-Cruz began TFA training last summer to develop instructional skills and completed an onboarding intensive at his placement school prior to working with students. He meets the requirements set by the Ohio State Board of Education and is licensed to teach special education.

Olegnowicz-Cruz gets to school by 7:30 a.m. every day to prepare for classes starting at 9. Throughout the day, students visit his classroom for one-on-one specialized sessions to work toward their learning goals, whether it’s learning how to read or better understanding the math lessons their general education classroom is learning.

Olegnowicz-Cruz also visits some students in their classrooms throughout the day to provide individualized instruction to students alongside their general education teacher.

He sees a handful of students every day, with breaks to supervise recess, until class dismisses at 4:15 p.m. He spends the rest of his afternoon lesson-planning, holding meetings with teachers, reaching out to students’ families, and overall keeping track of the progress his students are making. It’s a “lucky” day when he can leave school by 6 p.m., when he says a visit to the gym helps him physically and mentally decompress.

The biggest challenges of his job are things beyond his control, like when students arrive late to school because of unreliable transportation issues. His schedule, while blocked out for every minute, must also be flexible to fit in students who arrive late or have to move their session with him to another time.

For every challenge is also a bright spot, especially one-on-one reading sessions with his students, who range from 4 to 10 years old, Olegnowicz-Cruz says: “That’s got to be the most emotionally rewarding part of the job, is teaching kids how to read.”

Ultimately, Olegnowicz-Cruz says he’s inspired to teach thinking about how supportive teachers shaped his own life. Olegnowicz-Cruz was born in Mexico and moved to Ohio when he was young; he learned English through public school and was encouraged to take on leadership roles through extra-curriculars, eventually acting as president and founder of multiple student groups in college.

In the same way, Olegnowicz-Cruz hopes to inspire his students to work hard and hold high expectations for themselves to set and achieve their own goals.

By the end of his time as a corp member, Olegnowicz-Cruz will receive a $13,000 education stipend from AmeriCorp and TFA, which he’ll apply toward earning his MBA or pursuing a year-long masters degree in leadership through program in China. He’s also been offered a business consulting internship in Washington, D.C., for the summer.

As for his future in business, Olegnowicz-Cruz is most interested in economic development and supporting access to high-quality education across the global south, including across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“The job that I have right now is super rewarding,” he says, “and I know that everything that I’m learning, not just in terms of organizing my day-to-day, but stakeholder management, working with data, all these transferable skills are a big asset to where I want to go and the impact that I want to drive on a systemic level.”

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Of the many kinds of people in the workplace, one stands out to Shizu Okusa as a major red flag.

It’s someone who communicates poorly, especially during a conflict or disagreement, says Okusa, founder and CEO of New York-based wellness company Apothékary. She particularly dislikes when people publicly criticize their peers at work, because it rarely fosters constructive dialogue and can often lead to conflict, she says.

“When something bad happens, it could be really easy to hop on a meeting with many other people and [call someone out],” says Okusa, whose company brought in $20 million in revenue over nine months last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Doing so “never goes well.”

You’ve probably seen this scenario play out before in a movie or in real life. A boss, dissatisfied with an employee’s work, makes an example out of them during the next team meeting. Your colleague calls out another employee for not contributing to a big project, right in the middle of the office.

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Those situations can alienate employees — including non-participants who are simply uncomfortable witnessing the conflict — and potentially become an HR issue for creating a hostile work environment.

Instead, try “calling people in,” Okusa says: Invite them to talk more privately and address your concerns with them directly, so the two of you can discuss without fear of embarrassment or judgment from others.

“I think that most things fail because of poor communication,” says Okusa, adding that managers especially need to set a positive standard for culture and communication. “Either things could have been said better, things could have been shared better, or the context was off.”

The next time you and a coworker have a disagreement, don’t blow up at them in your next meeting or online. Take a step back and assess the situation, Carolyn Kleiman, a career expert at ResumeBuilder.com, told CNBC Make It in 2022. 

If you prefer to get things done in advance and your colleague waits until the last minute, for example, you can probably address your concern with a short one-on-one meeting, said Kleiman. If your issue is with a person’s character or personality, you may “want to try to limit your interactions,” said Kleiman. “Keep things brief, keep things surface, keep things professional.”

If your problem is with your boss, document it and bring it up in your next one-on-one, Kleiman said. Say something like: “I’ve noticed that you tend to [example of poor communication.] It would be helpful if you did this instead.”

Having a boss who lacks communication skills is difficult. Try to assume positive intent, and if their behavior still doesn’t change, consider escalating the issue to HR, especially if your colleagues have similar experiences, Harvard career advisor Gorick Ng told CNBC Make It in 2022.

“No manager wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘How can I make my team’s life as miserable as possible,’” said Ng. “It’s, ‘How can we get this work done and live a happy life?’”

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Want your kids to get better grades, have a healthy social life, and just be happier? Give them chores.

Kids who were given household tasks in kindergarten, regardless of sex, family income, and parent education, reported getting higher math scores in third grade, according to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. They also reported having more positive relationships with their peers and higher life satisfaction than kids who weren’t given chores.

The longitudinal study focused on about 10,000 children over a four year period.

In a recent post on LinkedIn, Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant said these findings show a “neglected predictor of success and happiness.”

There might be other factors at play, Grant notes. “Of course we don’t know if it’s causal or if chores are the sole active ingredient—these parents may be doing many other things right.”

But, parents can still take something from the results of the study, he wrote: “Giving kids responsibility shows trust and builds character.”

Other experts echo this sentiment. Margaret Machol Bisnow, author of “Raising an Entrepreneur: How to Help Your Children Achieve Their Dream,” has interviewed 70 parents who raised highly successful kids and says one of their biggest regrets is not entrusting their kids with enough responsibility.

“Giving our children more chores not only helps them become responsible, it teaches them useful skills for when they’re on their own,” she wrote for CNBC Make It.

Kids ages four to five can do a number of chores by themselves, according to the Child Development Institute. Some suggestions include:

• Making their bed without supervision
• Watering flowers
• Putting away clean utensils
• Matching socks together
• Dusting with a cloth

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For such a simple word, “no” can be hard to say. People-pleasers struggle with it. So do early-career workers with demanding bosses. But sometimes, you need to draw a boundary.

If you tend to get a lump in your throat before declining something or defying someone, try to stop thinking about how the other person will respond, and focus instead on how your decision will benefit you personally, behavioral scientist and Cornell University associate professor Sunita Sah told LinkedIn’s “Hello Monday” podcast in an episode that aired last week.

Sah herself was raised to be obedient, she said: “I was known for being an obedient daughter and student. … You get conditioned to think compliance is good and defiance is bad. And you are rewarded for being obedient. So that’s where it starts for many of us.”

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But saying no to extra work when you already have a full schedule, for example, doesn’t make you lazy or a poor team player. It shows that you value your long-term productivity and mental health Sah said — and if you focus on doing yourself a service, rather than doing someone else a disservice, you might find saying “no” a lot easier.

“That reframes it from this negative connotation to a proactive positive force in society,” said Sah, adding: “One of the key things I’ve learned is that defiance is a practice, not a personality. It’s a skill set and we can choose to utilize it or not.”

You can use some key phrases to help lighten the blow, Juliet Funt, author of “A Minute to Think,” wrote for CNBC Make It in 2021:

1. “May I take a day to get back to you?”
2. “I can do it for you this time, but I can’t do it for you every time.
3. “It does not [or will not] work for me to … ”
4. “I can’t, but here’s another option for you.”
5. “It’s not good for me now, but let’s look ahead in our calendars.”

“The specific words used to reject a request can be excruciatingly hard to come up with,” Funt wrote. “It’s easy to come off as too blunt, to get long-winded with excuses, or to sound unsure even as we’re trying to be confident.”

Whatever you say, keep your tone matter-of-fact, explain your rationale and suggest another way for the task to get done, communication expert Jessica Chen recommended in her 2024 book “Smart, Not Loud.”

“We can suggest alternative times for others to check in when we have more free time, or provide other avenues for them to explore,” Chen wrote.

And remember that a simple “no” is a complete statement, Funt noted: You can always simply “get it out and say nothing more.”

Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work. Expert instructors will teach you how to get started, practical uses, tips for effective prompt-writing, and mistakes to avoid. Pre-register now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+ taxes and fees) through February 11, 2025.

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