Tag Archives: education

What Parents Can Do To Raise Their Child’s EQ

In 1995, Daniel Goleman introduced the idea of emotional intelligence (EQ). Before this, it was widely accepted that a person’s IQ was the sole contributing factor to their intelligence and that it was a genetic given, unable to be changed by life experience. Based on extensive research, Goleman showed how a person’s success in all areas of their life is influenced equally, if not more, by emotional characteristics, which combined make up their emotional intelligence. In addition, he stated that EQ could be taught and raised.

The implications of these findings on education were enormous. Sadly, after almost twenty years, our obsession with our children achieving high grades is greater than ever before, with little integration of what we know about EQ into the success equation. Many parents with very smart kids, still don’t understand why their children don’t do as well as they should in school and in other areas of their lives.

Lets look at a hypothetical situation. If Child A and Child B have equivalent IQs but Child B is able to persevere with a challenging task more easily than child A, who will do better at that task? Child B would be the one that most, if not all would pick and yet somehow teaching children how to be more persevering is not a part of the school curriculum. Perseverance is only one of the traits that research has shown to contribute to a child’s EQ. When combined with other characteristics like good communication skills, strong empathy and high self-esteem, the potential impact of EQ on our child’s success is enormous.

In a perfect world teaching EQ should be a part of the school curriculum, having equal status to subjects like mathematics, language and science. In the absence of this scenario, the question that remains is this: what can we, as parents, do to increase our child’s EQ?

I have some starting suggestions that require little effort from parents other than changing their perspective on the importance of EQ.

  • Make sure that the ratio of factual learning and social learning is balanced. Much of EQ growth takes place in a social environment. Extra math when your child is doing fine in math is not necessary unless it is something that they really want to do. Playing with friends is equally important.
  • Don’t over-program your child. Children need time for relaxation, self-reflection and self-discovery. These times are crucial to the healthy development of EQ.

  • Try to see success in all areas of your child’s life and not only in school. Feel good in the knowledge that academic achievement will benefit from your child’s social and emotional success.

As a mother of four, I understand the pressure that parents feel. We all want our children to have the best lives but sometimes we have to question preexisting beliefs to make that happen.

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I’m Sorry Karen Klein

Bullying saddens me. With four children, the subject has been the focus of my attention many times over the past twenty-nine years. I have had to deal with bullying in the school, in the neighbourhood and as they got older, bullying in the workplace. When I watched the YouTube video of Karen Klein being bullied by a group of grade seven boys, I was both saddened and horrified. I suppose there are no rules about the direction that bullying can take.

I felt more distressed as I began reading the comments posted on this viral video. They included anger at the situation, anger at the boys, anger at the parents, wanting the boys to suffer for their crime and even wanting them to die. There were also those who used this as a platform for their own hatred and prejudices by commenting on the presumed ethnicity of the boys. And finally, there were those who felt that what had happened would and could never happen to them.

I don’t believe that this is a simple problem involving these boys, their parents and Karen Klein. I’m not saying the boys should not be held accountable for their actions and take responsibility for them. They should. Nor am I saying that their parents should not be doing some soul searching. They should. I’m saying that the problem extends further.

Responsibility also lies with those who respond to this situation with hatred, perhaps because deep inside of them they know that given the right circumstances they could do the same. Responsibility also lies with those who react with piety because it makes them feel better about themselves. Responsibility also lies with those parents who firmly believe that this could never happen with their children. This naivety is the fuel for ongoing bullying.

Responsibility also lies with those who feel good about themselves for being a part of a “non-bullying” campaign in schools but don’t realize that a campaign like this only works if the schools are vigilant and proactive because children bully in secret. Responsibility lies with those parents who teach their children to stay away from trouble and turn the other cheek. You are responsible. I am responsible.

There are only two questions that we should ask about this situation. What do I do to perpetuate this? What can I do to make it better?

There are two places where our children learn humanity – at home and at school.

Walk into a book store and look at the parenting section. There are a huge number of books to choose from. This is reflective of the many parents wanting to do better. There are many resources for parents and many parents who are enlightened regarding bullying and how to teach their children to not bully and to not become bullies.

However, from the age of three, in many cases, we entrust our children, for a large part of their lives, to schooling and many of us assume that schools are doing it right. But are they? Teachers can barely cope with getting through the curriculum of academic subjects. With the competitiveness between schools to perform, any spare time that they might have is spent aiming for higher academic achievement. It is no wonder that there is no room for educating our children in empathy, peer pressure, bullying or crowd mentality.

We no longer question the content within the curriculum of our schools for fear of being left behind. For many parents, the academic school curriculum is not enough. Their children spend time after their school day at extra “something” to put them further ahead. I think we should question this education model. I would rather my child know less about chemical compositions and more about being a decent human being. With all the research that has been done in the past few years on emotional intelligence we now know it can be taught and more importantly, children with higher emotional intelligence are more likely to be successful in all areas of their lives.

Why can’t all of this be it’s own subject at school? Let’s call it “Humanology.” In this class we can teach children to be empathic, rather than dealing with the fallout of bullying. We can teach them perseverance instead of punishing them for not working hard enough. We can teach them self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation. We can teach them that it is not our relationship with computers and books but with people that determines our success.

Our children rely on us to teach them, show them by example and let them know what they should focus on. Bullying is everyone’s problem. I’m sorry Karen Klein.

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