Archive for the Emotional Intelligence Strategies Category

If you’re a parent, it is one of your biggest fears.

You have some friends whose child makes you wince every time s/he opens his mouth. Or is known among other parents as a bully. Your friends are constantly being called into the principal’s office to discuss their child’s behavior. And, most crushingly of all, the child is being shunned and not invited on playdates.

Your fear is that this will happen to your child. And you.

You fear that your parenting journey that started out with such joy and a tiny, wriggly bundle swaddled in a warm blanket will disintegrate into a desperate morass of negative emotion. And you desperately don’t want that to happen.

This third part in a series of posts was inspired by a recent Back-To-School night at our Six Seconds lab school, Synapse, after the father of a kindergartener requested a list of books I would recommend reading.

I dithered when he asked and then said, “Okay, I can do that.”  After some thought, I identified six enduring life lessons for creating change, six adult books that detailed these ideas, and paired them with six children’s picture books. I believe it is vastly important to grasp these notions if we want to successfully create change in our society and reading books can help us do this tremendously well. Plus, everyone loves a good, new book, don’t they? 🙂

I love hats.

I once held a dinner where many hats were on show. My guests were in awe of my collection.

I had to confess that only some of them were mine – a couple of friends had brought their own to round out my display – but I am fond of hats, so I’d like to use this metaphor to remind you of a few things that will help make your time on this wonderful planet live up to your expectations.

You, who are reading this, are in a unique position.  I would hazard a guess that you are in a leadership position, such as teacher, consultant, director, professor, manager, supervisor, parents, etc.

This time last year, I had just endured my first surgery. You may be wondering how I managed to live so long avoiding such a feat but I can assure you, no matter how old you are, the first time is always significant and humbling.

Back then I was thankful for decades of previous great health, my friends and family who dug deep to help me through the experience, my little dog, Taffy, for being such an undemanding companion.

This year, however, while I am still deeply appreciative of my family and friends and the profound things of life, I find myself grateful for weird, prickly things.

When I was very small – probably about seven – I read a fairy tale about a princess who was born with a glass heart. In the story, this princess grew into a lovely young woman. Early one day, feeling joy at the sight of the first crocuses or daffodils or tulips in the palace garden below, she leaned too far out the over a window sill. The pressure on her fragile heart proved too much. There was a tiny sound – like glass breaking – and she fell as if dead.

When the confusion settled, the doctor discovered her heart was not broken after all, but she had suffered a long, slender crack in it. The princess had survived this near catastrophe. The princess lived to be very old and continues to find deep pleasure in her life. As a child, I remember thinking and being puzzled about:

I went to a funeral last week.

Mary C. Laycock was a wonderful mathematician and teacher. I worked with her at Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA and knew her for many years.

Her students adored her and her ‘Mary’s Math.’ One lesson with Mary and you would develop an insight into math that would stay with you forever.

She knew how to get people to put on their mathematical eyeglasses. She knew how to help them see everything through a mathematical lens. She had the gift to transform students’ relationship with math. Mary emphasized the beauty of understanding the process of mathematics rather than the importance of getting the right answer.

I had my tonsils out when I was thirteen.

That’s significantly beyond the normal age to have tonsils out, don’t you think? I seem to do everything when I am older. ☺

My mother, to keep me occupied during the recovery, gave me a paint-by-numbers set. I loved it. Just follow the numbers and out came this gorgeous (that might be an exaggeration) painting of a horse.

For many years, I lived my life by ‘painting the numbers’ or something equivalent.

You want to make chocolate chip cookies? Here’s the recipe.

Last night on my way out the door for my ritual run (a euphemism for a walk/jog,) I stuck a $10 bill in my jacket pocket because, who knows:

1) I might want a lemonade from the two young female entrepreneurs, who live just over two streets or
2) a frozen yogurt (currently my favorite flavor is red velvet cake) or
3) an essential item from the grocery or drug store.

As I am jogging along, I think about the necessity of soap and toothpaste from the drugstore and I stick my fingers into my pocket to retrieve the $10 bill. Whoops. No bill.

Fog hangs like a thick quilt over the morning.

You anticipate that you’ll return from your walk damp and cold. You almost don’t go, but then you decide not to allow the habitual rhythm of your day to collapse.

When you are only ten minutes from home and a cup of steaming hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows, you round the park comes into view. Its playground is shrouded in mist. Swings sway with each fresh gust of dampness. It is as if the swings are beckoning: “Come play!”

Usually, remembering the sting of that wooden swing connecting with your three-year old face, your lost teeth, all that blood, you avoid swings. But this morning, you brush the ghosts aside, grab hold of the cold metal chains and lower yourself onto the seat.

How many times have you had to deal with the negativity of others this week? Today?

We know that anger and stress are all around us from the frustrated car driver waiting for the pedestrian to cross the road to the mom dealing with toddler tantrums. Coping with all this stresses us out and becomes contagious as it manifests itself in our own hostility towards the people in our lives’ and so the cycle continues.

There is this idea that we have to absorb the all moodiness and aggression of those around us. And it’s just not true. We don’t have to take into our bodies this negativity; there are things we can do, just as with anything that is bad for us.