“He hit me back first,” pleaded Jonah. Mrs. Ruben tightened her lips, squinted her eyes and pointed to the desk next to hers. No words were necessary. All of the students knew what she meant.

 This was a familiar scene in her kindergarten classroom at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School; children reacting impulsively without taking ownership of their actions. At this stage of development, kids do not reason like adults. Yet, they are eager to join with others in work and play. They will frequently test boundaries, not understanding the consequences of their behavior.

In 1985, psychologists introduced the terms Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ). It has been said that EQ, not IQ, is more responsible for our life successes.

Here’s the deal: IQ measures analytical and problem-solving abilities. Everyone is born with a certain IQ and can expand it some, but it is largely fixed. IQ is only computational power.

EQ, on the other hand, is our ability and effectiveness in managing self and relating to others. Our EQ can increase indefinitely. Every time we increase our awareness, we increase our EQ. In short, EQ is personal mastery!

As parents, we have the duty to “train up” our children. That means we are responsible for teaching, demonstrating and influencing their mindsets. If our kids are going to be emotionally intelligent, we had better instruct them not to look only on their own things, but everyone also on the things of others. (Phil 2:4) We must teach our children how to manage their emotions, and how to assess and identify the emotions of others. After all, what does it profit our children to know their ABCs and 123s, if they don’t have people skills. With whom will they share their new discoveries and life events?

Above, Jonah feels justified in defending himself. However, he was not under attack; he was the perpetrator. Jonah took no ownership of his own actions. But rather, placed the blame on his classmate. There’s no indication from what we read as to the emotional status of the victim in this confrontation. However, it is noted that the classmate defended himself. Mrs. Ruben’s expressions indicated that she too was affected by Jonah’s behavior. She became angry, but managed to stay in control.

In teaching EQ, we first teach our children to be more responsible for their own actions by helping them to identify their own feelings and connect the thoughts that give birth to those feelings. Negative thoughts create negative feelings. Positive thoughts create positive feelings. Over time, we can teach our children to use their thoughts to generate more positive emotions even from what seem to be totally negative situations.

Second, we can teach our children to identify the feelings of others by asking these questions:

How will I feel?
How will others feel?

Introspective questions will help our children to recognize the feelings of others by using themselves as a baseline. With this new focus, we can develop our children’s sensitivity to others’ feelings and their corresponding facial or body expressions. For example, when a person is feeling happy, they may smile, laugh or do cartwheels. When a person is feeling sad, they may frown, cry or pull away. This awareness will cause our children to become emotionally intelligent.

The next time around, Jonah may rethink hitting his classmate. His EQ will remind him how it feels to be bullied. He’ll also remember it was his negative behavior that caused the teacher to become angry.