The Core Standards for Emotional Intelligence

We are setting new standards for achievements all over the place that really don’t matter.  Study after study shows that those who are most successful are the ones who know how to get along with others.  Daniel Goleman explains in his book ‘Working with Emotional Intelligence’ that success is not a result of academics, or IQ, or even skills or expertise.  Advancement is best marked by a high level of emotional intelligence.  There is an emotional competence framework he talks about that is methodically being extricated from our child’s school experience by other standards.  Parents need to question how their child can work on learning self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.  When children sit in rows in front of computers can they learn how to be emotionally aware, or are driven to achieve, and make commitments? How can we as parents work to help them learn to understand others? How can we as parents teach our children to influence others positively, and listen openly?  Team building, collaboration, and leadership are all skills we hope our child can build.  Unfortunately there are only so many hours in an educational day.  Parents must take up the slack and involve their child in other extra-curricular activities that have high levels of social interaction where these skills can be learned.

Talking about feelings

How do teach our children to talk about their feelings

One of the most important things we can do for our children is to help them find a way to talk about how they feel without judging, blaming, or theorizing.   One of the ways to help them connect their actions with their feelings is an ‘I’ statement.  Tell them to say: “When you _________________ I feel____________.” Tell them they should not, blame, name call, or judge.

If a child can make this link between behaviors and feelings early on they will tend to be more compassionate later on in life.  How can they learn to talk about their feelings like this?  The parents need to be honest with their feelings and need to show leadership in the way they link their feelings to behaviors.  One ‘I’ statement can show how an action resulted an a particular feeling. Seeing others use I statements will catch on.

If a child is acting out their feelings rather than speaking about their feelings parents should help them by talking out their problems. Questioning can start with.  What happened?  Why did you do that? How did you feel when you did that?  How do you think they feel now?

Emotions are our friends.

     Emotions are our friends.  We do not honor them enough in our society.  That is why there are so many people that lash out against eachothr because they are unable to deal with their feelings in appropriate effective ways.  Feelings need to be taught to children.  They affect them all the time.  When we listen to our own feelings and the feelings of others it is easier to be part of a group. When we are aware of our emotions and the emotions of others we are more effective socially.  How do we learn to recognize, map out and navigate the emotional terrain?

    We must explore the causes of our emotions which are often a mystery to even us.  We stuff our feelings and box them up as if they are criminals to be put in jail.  But, that is a serious mistake.  Every emotion that stews inside us whether it is good or bad is related to the world around us.  Most often it is related to how a person behaved toward us.  So, if we can understand the causes of our feelings we will be able to navigate the world around us to promote our own emotional wellbeing.

     The cultural norm keeps us in our head.  We think about our lives and have lost touch with how to honestly feel and experience our lives. Some therapeutic approaches tell us we cannot cause feelings in others.  This keeps us separate.   I would like to think that each and every one of us in intertwined and connected environmentally, socially, emotionally, and cosmically.  Therefore I would like to point out that if we are going to build emotional literacy, we must examine our feelings, and how the actions of ourselves and others affect the way we and others feel.  Claud Steiner PhD rewrites the famous Fritz Perls “Gestalt Prayer” to say:

If I do my thing and you do your thing

 And if we don’t live up to each other’s expectations

 We might live but the world will not survive.

You are you, and I am I, and together

 Joining hands, not by chance,

We will find each other beautiful

 If not we can’t be helpful.

Let us begin to feel in our hearts the joy, pain, suffering, and love around us.  We might be able to help make the world a better place!