How many thoughts and feelings do you experience each day? You may have acted in different ways depending on whether such feelings bring you happiness, sadness or anger.

Such conditions of mind or feelings that suddenly arise and affect our minds making us react in various ways are known as emotions. Such reactions can be either good or bad.

In grade 6 you learned several ways of maintaining emotional balance.

Emotional balance is the ability to maintain your conduct well by reacting intelligently when you experience an emotion. It is important to maintain a good emotional balance not only when you are sad, angry or jealous but also when you are happy.

When you were doing the above activity, you and your friends may have understood that you had a variety of thoughts and feelings. These are common to everybody. These feelings could be positive feelings like happiness and kindness or negative feelings like sadness, anger and fear.

All the people get emotions. However different people react to them in different ways. Some react instantly. Some, on the other hand, would not react instantly but react afterwards.

Eg: Vipula brought a toy car to school. Saman liked it very much and borrowed it to play. He accidentally dropped it and broke a wheel. Vipula got angry and hit Saman. His friends intervened and stopped the fight. Saman didn't react at once, but the next day he brought a new car and gave it to Vipula and apologised. Vipula felt ashamed of the way he reacted the previous day. He too apologised and decided not to react the way he did, thereafter.

In the above example Vipula reacted instantly giving way to his emotion. But his reaction was not appropriate. He should have expressed his feelings in a different manner. Eg: " I gave you my car thinking you would look after it. I felt very sad when you broke it".

Some people react inappropriately by screaming, crying and hitting others when they get emotions. You can avoid harm to yourself as well as others by reacting with patience after giving thought to the matter.

1. Situation - In the above example when Saman was hit, he felt angry but he did not react negatively as he knew he shouldn't behave badly in school. Reaction differs according to the situation.

2. Understanding - As you grow older and mature, your ability to cope with emotions will improve with your experiences in life. In the above example, Vipula through his experience, learnt how to react in such situations. Your parents and teachers react with such understanding through their experience.

3. Personality - The capacity to cope with emotions differs from person to person depending on their personal qualities. Some get angry instantly while others are patient. You would have learnt from the above example that it depends also on such personality traits as kindness, sense of responsibility, patience or short-temper.

4. Behaviour of others - In the above example, the fight did not continue thanks to Saman's patience. If he too had reacted angrily, the fight would have ended causing more harm to both. Therefore the behaviour of others affects our reactions.

5. Experience - The above incident taught Vipula the danger of reacting impulsively. Such experiences teach us how to react patiently. A person who has experienced attending funerals before, would know better how to cope with grief resulting from the loss of a relative.

6. Life style - We react to our feelings according to the things we learn from the environment. If the people around a child always react in anger when a problem arises, then the child too will react in the same manner.

7. Age groups - When in discomfort or in hunger an infant cries. During childhood some frown or cry when they want to show their displeasure. When they reach adolescence, they either walk away or argue. Thus we can see that age, too, has an effect on controlling one's emotions.

In day-today life, how many challenges do you face? Everyone will face situations of sadness and distress due to factors such as sickness, separation from friends, competitive exams and financial difficulties. The same way there will be happy occasions as well such as meeting friends, attending functions and receiving gifts. Therefore both sad and happy occasions are common to everyone. By learning to react calmly to both positive and negative emotions, we can avoid stress.

1. Empathy

The ability to understand another's emotions or feelings in the exact manner is empathy. Then you can understand why the other person reacted in the manner he/she did and respond accordingly. This helps us to develop good qualities of helping others and not ridiculing them.

2. Good interpersonal relationships In our day to day life we meet different types of people, such as parents, teachers, friends, other students, passengers in buses etc. We can minimize problems if we learn to tolerate others' weaknesses and be co-operative and flexible. This helps us to minimize unpleasant situations we come across in society. You will become a pleasing personality to the society as a whole. In the process you will get the co- operation of others to solve problems that you face.

3. Effective communication Effective communication means listening to others' views patiently and expressing your ideas clearly. By exchanging ideas clearly we can minimize problems and work efficiently when working as a team.

4. Minimize mental stress

You may remember learning in grade 6, what you should do when you have unpleasant or stressful emotions.

What you can do when you have unpleasant emotions

• Avoid such situations

• Listen to a song or play a game

• Count from 1 to 10 slowly

• Take deep breaths quietly

• Drink a glass of water slowly

• Engage in a method of meditation that you know

When you feel emotions such as anger, sadness or jealousy, try to divert your attention to something else and later think about it and identify the reason for it. 

Meditation helps you to avoid unpleasant emotions and helps you to relax.

1. Avoiding unpleasant feelings that arise with stressful emotions.

2. Developing self esteem.

3. Developing good interpersonal relationships and becoming a person with a pleasant personality.

4. Developing your capacity to cope with challenges by enhancing your efficiency.

Man has various needs. Beside basic needs like food, water and air, man also has needs such as housing, clothes and accessories, education, security and love. If these needs are not fulfilled, one develops negative emotions.

eg. Saman noticed that his friend Nirodha was sad. That day Nirodha was inattentive in class. He had his head down on the desk. When Saman inquired as to why he was sad, Nirodha told him that his father had lost his job and that they had financial difficulties. He had not had his breakfast that day. Saman immediately shared his food with Nirodha. After the meal Nirodha became active again. He attended to his school work happily.

In the above example you would have understood that Nirodha became unhappy because he couldn't fulfil his basic need of food. When a basic need is not satisfied, it is difficult to pay attention to other vital needs such as education.

The members of your family contribute in different ways to fulfil your needs and requirements. Your parents work hard to provide your food, clothes, accessories and other requirements. You also have a duty and responsibility to help them in this regard.

Let us consider the various requirements that should be fulfilled within the family:

To fulfil these requirements of the family, the members of the family work hard together. The money required for the basic needs like food for the family is earned by the father and the mother. Your parents do their best to provide you with well prepared food and clean water. They also strive to provide you with clothes and accessories and a house with fresh air. They try their best to give you a good education. They also look into your security and protection and give you love and affection. They keep you healthy and look after you and provide you with medicine when you are ill and keep you fit mentally and physically.

The family lays a good foundation for you to develop self esteem and be a good citizen. Your parents and other members of the family identify your talents and skills while appreciating your achievements, so that you will achieve your targets. In a family it is important that food, clothes and other accessories are shared equally by all, according to their requirements. You begin to learn the basic concept of treating everybody equally from your parents and other adults in the family.

You spend most of your life with the members of your family. In the same way that the members of your family contribute a lot towards your upbringing and welfare, you too must help them whenever possible. You too must help them to fulfil their needs by giving them love and kindness, helping each other when working as a team and by controlling your stress without being a burden to others.

Maintaining your emotional balance when you work with the other members of the family will help to enhance happiness, unity and welfare within the family. It is important to understand others' ideas and act patiently: respect others' points of view and take correct decisions. Discuss with your parents when you come across problematic situations and when a member of the family faces a problem, help them to solve it and listen to their problems and grievances. When you have financial problems the whole family must work together as a team. Then you will be able to solve the problems successfully. This will enable you to maintain peace, happiness and good moral standards within the family. The way you acted in various situations in your home, whether they were successful or not could be discussed later and it will prepare you to face such problems better in future.

Emotions are feelings or states of mind that arise suddenly and trigger changes in your mind or behaviour.

Emotional balance means one's ability to react well by thinking intelligently at emotional moments.

Factors such as situation, understanding, personality, others' behaviour, experience, life styles and age, affect one's ability to maintain emotional balance.

Skills that help in maintaining emotional balance include empathy, good interpersonal relationships, productive communication and minimizing mental stress.

We will benefit in many ways by maintaining our emotional balance.

Fulfilment of basic needs and other requirements will help us maintain emotional balance in the family environment.

By taking correct decisions within the family, respecting others' views, understanding others' feelings and balancing our emotions, we can have peace and harmony at home.