By Euna Kwon Brossman
Have you ever caught yourself yelling at your children and saying things you would never want anyone else — a teacher, a neighbor, an acquaintance — saying to them? Ever wonder when parenting became so stressful, and where all the joy has gone? Do you want to be more in tune with your children, with their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and build stronger bonds?
“One of the most important things you can do as a parent is to build a caring family where you enjoy spending time with each other,” says Maurice Elias, a professor of psychology at Rutgers and a nationally recognized expert on emotional intelligence in children, schools, and families. “We live in a time when everyone’s under pressure to use every second for productive purpose. Everyone has a cell phone and beeper to remind them to check their phone and a pager to remind them to check their beeper and all of a sudden, parents have become available to everyone in the world except to their children, and it’s to their detriment.”
Elias is the featured speaker sponsored by CommonGround, a collaborative effort of the parent associations of 12 area independent schools. His lecture on “Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children in Difficult Times” will be Tuesday, February 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Pennington School.
Elias defines emotional intelligence as a set of abilities on the other side of the report card from academic skills. “They are social skills we need to manage everyday relationships and get along with people in all kinds of life situations. It’s our ability to express emotions, to detect emotions in others, to regulate strong feelings when we have them, and to take the perspective of other people.”
The past three years have seen a huge reaffirmation of the importance of emotional intelligence, according to Elias, that is reflected in a worldwide recognition of the need to teach parents, teachers, and children how to live in an emotionally intelligent way. His books have been translated into a dozen languages and he says he’s still getting requests, an indication that the need transcends boundaries of language and culture. In 2003 UNESCO published a booklet written by Elias called “Academic, Social and Emotional Learning,” a 36-page summary of his worldwide research and practice tips, that is popular in many countries.
Elias lives in Middlesex County with his wife, Ellen, a homemaker. He has two daughters: a senior at the University of Maryland and a pre-school teacher in Perth Amboy. Elias earned his B.A. in psychology from Queens College in 1974, followed by a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Connecticut.
Elias was born in the Bronx, the only child of a homemaker and foreman in the produce field in the Bronx Terminal Market. “My parents always had an open door policy in the house and we always had a variety of friends and family from other countries living with us. The idea of doing for other people was a tremendous part of my parents’ philosophy and I grew up knowing that my room would be given up at a moment’s notice.” Elias says that by today’s standards he would give his parents a grade of B or B plus in their parenting skills. “Dealing with money pressures, life pressures, family members coming and going, my parents would lose their cool. The prevailing wisdom at that time was that parents should never take back their words because it would diminish their authority if they apologized. Today there’s a recognition of the huge emotional impact of parental words on children, a neurobiology of the effect of harsh words.”
That’s why one of the foundations of Elias’ philosophy is something called the “24 Carat Golden Rule” which says do unto your children as you would have other people do unto your children. “There’s the regular Golden Rule which is do unto others as you have other people do unto you. We like that. But that’s the 18 Carat Golden Rule because it’s not strong enough. The idea of doing unto your children as you would have other people do unto your children reflects the idea that many parents will say things to their own children that if a neighbor were to say the same thing to their children you’d want to kill them.”
Elias also believes that the nature of current society is having huge implications on parenting that need broader attention. There are influences from mass media and popular culture that are much more powerful than most people realize. He refers to research by James Comer at Yale University who points out that parents are spending less direct interactive time with their kids than ever before. In fact, young people are spending more time interacting with activities like GameBoy, GameCube, X-Box. “Parents are not always aware of that reality. Not only do they need to become more aware of it, they need to think seriously about the implications and what they need to do about it, says Elias.
Elias says teachers can play a greater role in cultivating and practicing emotional intelligence. “We have to help reacquaint teachers about why they got into teaching in the first place. They need to take a step back from the pressure to achieve certain test scores and then connect the mission of the mind with the life of the heart.”
Elias says that while teachers are embracing the idea of emotional intelligence, they’re also discovering that they haven’t been trained to handle the emotions of students. “And yet we put teachers in classrooms with children with a variety of emotional and social inadequacies with little preparation and not enough support.”
Elias believes that with a few rare exceptions, everyone is capable of improving his emotional intelligence level. “Everyone has social and emotional strengths and deficits. Some are harder to correct than others are and maybe they are not working, but with intervention the vast majority can be made to work better. You have to assume that they are capable of change and treat them that way because if you assume that they are incapable it’s certain there will be no progress.”
He also believes that emotional intelligence crosses gender lines and stereotyping is useless. You must look at the individual child. “While there are definite developmental differences between girls and boys these things overlap tremendously. So you’ll find girls who are insensitive and lack social skills and very sensitive boys with big social skills.”
He cautions against letting emotion make you feel like a failure if you gave up a career for parenthood and you feel your children aren’t meeting the mark. “You are no more solely responsible for the outcome of your children than you are for the outcome of things in the workplace. Parenting is an interdependent activity. Your successes and failures as a parent have as much to do with those of your partner, teachers, your children’s friends, and the media.
Elias offers three immediate tips on how to be a more emotionally intelligent parent:
1.) Live by the 24-carat rule
Always be aware of the emotional impact of your words on your children. Never say anything to them that you would not tolerate coming from anyone else.
2.) Teach your children to focus on their strengths.
We live in a competitive society. Children get regular doses of downers. They don’t need more when they come home.
3.) Make time for fun and laughter at home.
Fun and laughter are on the endangered species list in many families. It’s become something people do when they’re away from their families. Learn to have fun together. Play games, talk to them. Parents don’t need to hear more about discipline. They need to hear about having fun.
Elias says emotions of both parents and children play a strong role in psychological development. “We want to teach parents how to communicate with their children on a deeper level and how to help children successfully navigate the intricacies of relating to others.”
“Preparing Our Children for Success in School and Life: Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children in Difficult Times,” Maurice Elias. Tuesday, February 15, 7:30 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 7). Pennington School, 112 West Delaware Avenue, Pennington, 609-737-6128. www.princetoncommonground.org
