Observing a scene play out between a waitress and an Indian family gives rise to reflections about emotions as a doorway to social and cultural intelligence.
Emotional Social and Cultural Intelligence @ Indian [7:27m]:
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A few months ago I blogged about Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” about Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. He didn’t use these words, but he talked all about what we call emotional intelligence. Here’s a reprise he gave on Oprah:
Plus here are a ton of other videos about Randy.
After finishing the “Emotoscope” ap for Facebook I was shaking dust from my brain to come up w/ another fun way for people to learn about feelings. Said to Patty (my wife), “How about a cool online EQ jeopardy game?”
“Boring” - she said it more delicately. “I mean, what would you ask?” **
Emma (8) is listening in (as usual - big ears!!) and pipes up, “jealousy?”
Right on! “What is jealousy?” I continue to Patty, “Or how about ‘ a little anger + sadness’?” Blank look from Patty, Emma again:
“disappointment?”
Whoa! Emotional literacy in action.
And not enough. Maybe being intelligent about emotions is the foundation. Then the graduate course: to be intelligent with emotions.
** in defense of Patty: her point was that this game has only “right/wrong” answers and our learning philosophy commits us to deeper forms of reflection
Yesterday morning that song kept running through my head. Family and I were walking on the beach, a glorious, amazing January-I-am-so-lucky- to-live-in-California kind of day, watching my kids collecting sea glass… and thinking about my dad in the hospital.
We don’t quite know what’s wrong, it seems most likely to be lung cancer, we will know in a couple of days. He just had an incredibly amazing surgery to remove a tumor and 1 vertebrae, and today he’s been able to sit in a chair and will be out of ICU. 
It’s hard to hold onto how miraculous that is — while also thinking about the fact that he’ll start the “real” battle with this cancer in another week. These emotional paradoxes amaze me. How at once I can feel this incredible sense of blessing and concurrently feel a looming abyss of loss.
I don’t want to “go there” until we get the oncology report, and I keep slipping into the shadows of grief - into thinking how much we’ll miss him, how much I’ll miss him, about how there are so many things we’d saved for someday.
A new research report by the DfES into Social Capital in two inner-city Secondary Schools has recently been published.
Social Capital as defined by this study:
“Social capital refers to networks between people and the relationships of trust and reciprocity they develop. It is seen as a desirable characteristic of communities and societies and as a valuable asset for individuals, enabling access through social networks to employment, skills, health and other individual benefits. . . .The ability of young people to develop this network of relationships while in school and in their local community, and its possible impact on school outcomes, is of increasing interest to education policy makers.”
The study examined three types of social capital: sense of school belonging (a form of bonding social capital), access to social support networks, and attitudes to social diversity (bridging social capital), social background characteristics, socio- psychological resources and educational and wider outcomes.
The key findings of the report which are fascinating to read in full:
- Types of social capital are inter-related.
- Young people’s social capital is related to healthy socio-psychological resources.
- Social capital and socio-psychological resources are unevenly distributed.
- Schools have an important role in developing social capital.
School composition is important. In the highly culturally diverse schools in this study, most students held positive attitudes to ethnic diversity, but much more negative views of small minority groups within the schools, such as gay students.
Schools can develop social capital through different channels. For example, a feeling of safety, acceptance and support, and being treated fairly by staff and students all helped to build a sense of school belonging.
- School ethos can make a difference to students’ access to support. The school characterised by a ‘strict’ school ethos appeared to direct more academic support to students, while the school with a more liberal ethos seemed to facilitate students’ self-referral or informal access to socio-emotional support.
- Neighbourhood context and family support are important influences.
Strong family ties are linked to more positive orientations to school and less stress for young people. Other research shows that close, supportive ties with family can protect young people from negative neighbourhood influences.
A friend of a friend went to Iran recently and took photos of kids and of their drawings about war and peace. Someone else then put together this video - it’s a little long, but I found it kept drawing me in. What must it feel like for children to hear superpowers talking about bombing their country? How do we help children make sense of the past and current conflicts so they create something different for the future?
This is a piece on children and stress, very basic, a little simplistic - but not bad! Premise is that there is negative stress and positive stress. Parents need help kids know the difference and know what to do about it.
What to do? Well, a few suggestions. Conclusion:
EMOTIONAL intelligence helps children adjust to the needs and pressures of life. Life’s challenges often cause anxiety, leading children to seek reassurance.
Children can be taught to deal with challenges by identifying their emotions and coping with these obstacles. While pressure or stress is unpleasant, children need to be taught that it does not stop there.
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/5/25/lifeparenting/14263736&sec=lifeparenting
I liked these points — I agree that helping name feelings is a great way for parents to build dialogue about this important area. Often it’s hard when parents don’t have a lot of words for feelings themselves - or when they are too in a hurry. It’s not necessary to use “technical” words for feelings, e.g., instead of “jealous” it’s also great to say, “does it feel like when someone takes your toy?”:
- One thing parents need to remember is that they are “emotion coaches” for their children. Emotion coaches help their children name and discuss the feelings they may have.
- Parents should not try to solve the problem, but instead try to relate to the child’s experience and respect the child’s ideas.
I did not like this - it bothers me when people write “research says” and don’t have the research!
Research indicates that parents can use a variety of ways to become better emotion coaches. One approach is that parents should pretend what it would be like to be in the child’s situation and try to imagine what the child might be feeling.
Raising emotionally intelligent children
Susan Routh
OSU Extension Office
Raising a child is said to be one of the most challenging jobs in the world. Learning how to read a child’s emotions can be just as challenging.
Adults may often find themselves having difficulty identifying their own emotions, let alone knowing how to read their child’s emotions.
http://www.tuttletimes.com/columns/local_story_278191902.html
Yesterday Max was having one of his usual tiffs with his sister — she wasn’t paying attention to him and so he went an took one of her crayons or something. It escalated and he came crying into my office. As I was asking him about the incident, I noticed I was using our EQ model as a coaching process:
Know Yourself — identify emotions and behaviors: What happened? What did you do?
Choose Yourself — identify intentions and the (mis)match between action and intention: How did you want Emma to respond? What did you want from Emma? What actually happened?
Give Yourself — clarify the need to change by assessing the intention against your larger purpose: Is that the kind of friend you really want to be? Were you making the world a kinder place?
-J
