Social & Emotional Intelligence
Your social and emotional IQ is an important part of success in relationships, school, and career. These may be foreign terms to some, so let’s break it down with some simple definitions.
Emotional Intelligence is a person’s ability to be self aware, detect emotions in others, and manage those emotional cues effectively. To have healthy Emotional Intelligence, one must be able to identify, assess, and regulate a broad spectrum of emotions. Daniel Goleman conceived of these elements of Emotional IQ: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Social Intelligence is a person’s ability to navigate and negotiate complex social interactions and experiences. It means one is able to act wisely in social situations, particularly challenging ones. Social IQ requires empathy, just as Emotional IQ does. It requires one to develop an understanding for what others’ perceive as valuable.
Social IQ and Emotional IQ go hand in hand, and they are, thankfully, getting more and more attention in our schools and in parenting literature.
Developing these qualities in ourselves and in our children can be done through mindfulness exercises and practices. Try some of these at home with yourself or pass along to your teen.