By Winnie Bolton
A few years ago, I read a book called Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Coleman which redefined the word “smart.’
The book addressed our society’s emotional health. Since then I’ve been discovering how important emotional intelligence is in our lives.
Emotional quotient or EQ is as important as one’s intelligence quotient or IQ because it is the capacity of a person to recognize his or her own feelings; to manage their emotions and relationships, be open to constructive criticism, exhibit self-awareness and a sense of humor.
Diplomatically, the person encourages debate, allowing others to voice opinions offering a win-win solution while still accomplishing respect and honest.
For children, it is not enough to educate them in the ABCs assuming the emotional competencies like self-control, resolving conflicts and cooperation are the tasks of the home and church. What if a child is raised in a dysfunctional home or has no church community or support somewhere?
For many children across our nation classrooms are also the only education that can bring the mind (IQ) and the heart (EQ) together inculcating human competencies such as listening and cooperating.
Aggressiveness and bullying are out of control behaviors that can be rooted in high anxiety and/or low self-esteem. Schools that encourage conflict management deal with EQ at its roots. Just the other day in a local schoolyard I observed one kid say to his playmate, “Do you want to fight a fight?”
“No,” answered the other kids as he held the ball in contention, “let’s just talk about it.” So they negotiated and was I impressed. They were only 8 years old. It was a perfect example of managing a potential conflict.
How you manage your EQ impacts behaviors such as anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, forgiveness, tolerance, may be even over eating, drinking or spending money.
With the world changing dramatically, with life itself becoming more complicated, what we once called good old common horse sense is now designated as emotional intelligence. People are born for different tasks, but in order to survive everyone requires the same nourishment – inner peace.
