A person's most formative years are in childhood, making it a crucial time to build emotional awareness.

Naming emotions helps kids map feelings, which is the foundation of emotional intelligence.

Emotion labeling reduces amygdala activation, teaching kids emotions are manageable.

Emotional intelligence and wellness have turned into a burgeoning industry. We spend billions every year trying to make adults more emotionally intelligent through corporate workshops, mindfulness retreats, therapy, habit tracking, and self-help books that promise to rewire how we relate to ourselves and others.

And while all of these have their place, there is something ironic about the effort: The most powerful space for building emotional intelligence isn’t the boardroom or the therapist’s couch. It’s the kitchen table. Similarly, the most formative years of our lives aren’t our thirties or forties; they’re the ones we can barely remember.

So, what does the research actually say about building emotional intelligence from the ground up? As it turns out, one habit stands above the rest. It costs nothing, requires no special training, and it can begin the day a child is born.

The Habit of Naming Emotions Out Loud

The habit is deceptively simple: consistently naming emotions, be it your child’s, your own, or those of characters in the books you read together. The trick is to do it out loud, in the ordinary flow of everyday life. Psychologists call this “emotion labeling” or “emotion coaching,” and it is far more than a communication technique.

When a parent kneels down after a meltdown and says, “It sounds like you’re really frustrated right now,” instead of........

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