By Eileen Healy, MA, LMFT
“I know I need to teach my child English, math, history, spelling, and the other core subjects but why do I need to worry about teaching him/her about social emotional intelligence?”
Social emotional intelligence has been proven to be more important to teach our children than any of the core subjects. Why is that? Our children will need a certain proficiency in their core subjects but need to relate and adapt to the rest of the world outside the home. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand one’s own emotions and the emotions of others and to respond to those emotions in a healthy way. Children with a high emotional intelligence know how to manage their emotions and how to respond to others in a healthy way. Your child will need to know how to intra-relate and interrelate to himself and others throughout his life. Research continues to report that a high emotional intelligence in a child is the best predictor of success in life for a child — even more than a high IQ.
Research has shown over and over the last twenty years that a person’s emotional intelligence (EQ) is more important than a person’s IQ. How many times have you seen or worked with people who overreact at the simplest problem? Individuals who express anger or lack of self-control are individuals who have a low emotional intelligence. Children who cannot cope or struggle with the ups and downs that life throws at them on a daily basis and become overwhelmed by small things; who overreact to situations that are not in their control, are children with low emotional intelligence. Other children avoid these children with low EQ. Low EQ children have trouble making and keeping friends. Although these children may have the potential to be leaders, rarely do other children choose to follow them. When a parent or a teacher works with a child to increase his/her emotional intelligence, even the highest EQ children benefit and become stronger.
Think of the qualities we look for in our friends, our companions, the leaders who we want to follow and be associated with; the qualities we want in our bosses and the qualities we want in our spouses. These qualities are all a part of high emotional intelligence: Good communications, high self-acceptance, ability to solve problems, strong decision-makers, ability to manage their anger, willingness to take responsibility for their actions and accept responsibilities; the ability to understand their emotions and emotions of others and to be in healthy relationships.
Building and strengthening of these qualities is what children experience when they learn in a high emotional-intelligence environment. It is important to create a social-emotional learning environment that is not limited to two half-hour or forty-five minute sessions a week, but is pervasive in each of the core subjects and becomes integrated in every area of learning during a child’s day.
You can begin to create a social emotional learning environment today as soon as you put down this article. It is easier and simpler than you think to implement, and your children will begin benefiting almost immediately. In fact the entire family’s emotional intelligence will begin to increase. This means you will find more peace and harmony within your family, family members will feel emotionally supported by one another, and more emotionally connected.
The research has shown that children who learn within a social emotional learning program environment increase their academic success a minimum of 11%. As you learn to implement a social emotional learning program that is pervasive throughout your day and becomes part of your family’s life, your children have the potential to increase their academic success by 27% to 40%. E.H.
