EQ Parenting

Insight and advice for parents and caregivers on creating an emotionally intelligent family. Also includes a few articles for kids.

EQ Education News: Am I Doing This All Wrong? 5 Tips for Parenting Shy Kids

Emotional intelligence skills are learnable at any age. In this month’s newsletter we explore the emotion Shy among children

Getting Off the Trouble Train

“Have you ever found yourself in the middle a situation and you know it will to turn into a big mess? You can feel it slipping out of control… and yet you keep going. It’s as if you’re being pushed along this track; you know it’s going to lead to trouble, but it seems like there’s no choice.”

Decoding Emotions

Smarter About Feelings: Part Two . Part One introduced the idea of becoming smarter about feelings — and how that can help you (kids) get more of what you want… and less of what you don’t want! In that article I promised that I’d also write more about emotions and the meaning behind our feelings. […]

Smarter About Feelings

When I was a kid, no one taught me about emotions. They’re so powerful! And such a big part of our lives… here are the most important ideas every kid (and adult) needs to know about feelings.

The Myth of Winning: 3 Steps to Stand Together as Allies

Here’s why we make the boss, a colleague, a customer, spouses and lovers, and even our children into enemies — and a better way. It starts with our brains, and being addicted to the pleasure of righteousness.

Technology Loneliness: EQ Tips from Daniel Goleman

In the chaos of contemporary life, how do we maintain connection to self and others? Two of the world’s preeminent experts on emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman and Joshua Freedman, discuss in an engaging Q&A.

Parenting in Transitions (#26)

We’re in this highly volatile, lonely, stressful context… for many families school is starting and jobs are changing: How do we parent now?

Fights Well with Others: Tips for Collaborative Parenting

Want less fighting at home? Three tips every parent can use to forge compromise. Bonus Poster for your fridge. Build trusting relationships with your children and even at work with Collaborative Parenting strategies.

Mixed Emotions- Parenting Young Adults (#14)

2020 is a time of upheaval as we grapple with CV19, racism, climate instability, polarization, increasing issues with mental health… and as parents of young adults, many of us feel like we’ve failed to leave them a better world. So what do we do?

Kids & Screen Time: 5 Practical Tips for Parents

As technology becomes increasingly enmeshed in every aspect of our lives, how can parents equip kids with the skills they need to thrive?

9 Ways to Teach A Growth Mindset to Kids

Cultivating a growth mindset has been strongly linked to greater happiness and achievement in life. Here are 9 tips + strategies to give your kids the gift of a growth mindset.

Illuminate: Perfectionism, Pt 1

Perfectionism is the excessive fear of making mistakes. This week, I invite you to pay attention to how perfectionism, or the fear of making mistakes, shows up in your life.

Eat Mindfully: 7 Tips for Practicing Emotional Intelligence with Meals

Practicing emotional intelligence around how we eat it is an often forgotten key to digestive health, according to digestive psychologist Caspar Poyck. Here are 6 ways to eat mindfully and feel better physically.

Illuminate: Fiery Social Situation? Here’s How to Step In

I am not completely satisfied with how I handle uncomfortable social situations. If you agree, join me in taking a moment to dive into how you can navigate and transform your own behavior and thought patterns.

Back to School with Hope and Maybe Something More?

Heading back to school, mixed with hope & fear. How can we help students (anyone) feel belonging and acceptance as they are — while also supporting them to keep growing?

From Destruction to Life: A Case Study

When a child’s behavior devolves toward destruction, how can they find a way back toward health? A powerful story of how emotional intelligence helps.

Want Less Conflict with Your Kids? Try Empathy

You’ve told your kid “a million times” and frustration is rising. What if there was another way to see the situation? Here’s a 90-second tip for parents to use empathy to diffuse conflict and frustration.

How to Increase Empathy in Children

The key to happiness is strong, lifelong relationships – and you build those with empathy. Here’s how to increase empathy in children.

Research Study: School Burnout in Adolescents

They’re unmotivated, cranky, and stressed… What’s going on with youth these days? New research says teens are even more stressed than adults — and burnout is on the rise. Here’s the story, straight from those in the middle of it.

10 Simple Ways to Build Trust as a Parent

Parenting is the toughest job on the planet — it can be an emotional rollercoaster… so maybe emotional intelligence could help? Here are ten tips, and a free poster for your fridge.

20 Outstanding Books on Emotional Intelligence

Here’s a wonderful collection of books about emotional intelligence, including six key concepts for every parent to share with children (and books to do so!)

How to Teach Children Emotional Intelligence for a Better World

When feelings run hot, how can we use emotional intelligence to fuel our commitment for positive change… and support children to create a better world?

Supporting Children’s Rights through Strong Relationships

Mutually respectful relationships are a foundation for human rights. So how can children & adults use emotional intelligence to strengthen relationships?

Surprise! You’re a Role Model

The stories of Krissie Jo and Gandhi remind me that others (children, parents, colleagues, friends, and family) are always watching. Let me be the best me I can be. Each winter I start thinking about Christmas in my hometown: Inkom, Idaho. It’s just like in the movies, I swear. Delights of dipping chocolates, baking filled cookies, and the […]

Scared Excited: Talking to Children About Trauma

How to Talk to Kids About Fear and Trauma, Part II It’s difficult enough that, as parents, we struggle to find answers to the everyday issues with our kids, such as how to get them to eat more veggies, do their chores, and be kind to their siblings. When it comes to trauma and fear, […]

Stressed for Good: Surprising New Science about Stress

Stress kills… or does it? In the light of new neuroscience, maybe it’s time rethink stress – which might just save your life.

Where Do You Want The Ball To Go?

I’ve noticed something intriguing – if you have no idea what result you want, you’re unlikely to get it. My skills at pool/billiards are terrible, but I still can plan ahead and think about how I’m going to whack the cue ball to get a particular result. Isn’t this true of all of our interactions? If we decide “where we want the ball to go” in our meetings, conversations, interactions… then it’s much more probably we can make that happen.

The Way You Are

Is there a way to be unconditionally loving, and also to hold high expectations? As parents, can we love our kids “as they are” AND help them be better?

Feel the Power: Flexing EQ

The use of power is central to our interactions as leaders, coaches, parents, and change agents. To be more effective, emotional intelligence will help us understand and tune up our own use of power and the ways people react to that. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of different forms of power. All of these “work” in some sense. If they generate certain desired there are “benefits.” At the same time, each produces unwanted side effects, called “costs.” What are some of the forms of power that you have, and that you exercise? What happens when you exercise these different forms of power? What price do you pay for each such use?

Right Speech by Eknath Easwaran

Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Founder, handed this article to me several years ago. It’s stuck with me as a powerful set of guidelines for being impeccable with words. The children, Patty and I have discussed the “three gatekeepers” often over the last years; we started when the kids were 4 and 6 years old and […]

Listen or Tell – Reducing Family Conflict

How can we solve conflicts with our kids – when they don’t want to talk about it? A major EQ challenge.

The Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence

The Six Seconds model turns EQ theory into practice for your personal and professional life. Emotional intelligence is the capacity to blend thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions — which is key to having a successful relationship with yourself and others. To provide a practical and simple way to learn and practice emotional intelligence, Six Seconds developed a three-part model in 1997 as a process – an action plan for using emotional intelligence in daily life.

Alone in the Parade

The drive to connect, to be accepted, is both glorious and brutal. It drives us to care and connect — and to engage in self-destructive behavior in a desperate bid to fit. The “thinness” of digital connection can’t actually be fixed by quantity — just as one can not get a healthy meal by eating a LOT of junk — but the thinness may drive people to want more.

EQ Parenting

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