<a href="http://www.thenestmiami.com/blog/?attachment_id=136" rel="attachment wp-att-136"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-136" alt="80" src="http://www.thenestmiami.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/80.jpg" width="240" height="320" /></a>I was speaking to a preschool teacher recently who communicated that something really interesting is happening to her preschool class. She stated that her students were very intelligent and that most of them recognized letters, knew their numbers and their colors, She found that wonderful, but she bemoaned the fact that none of them had any type of life skill or emotional and social skill at four years of age.  She wondered, “What’s going on?  Why aren't they getting that?  What has happened?”   My answer to her was a tough one. What I see constantly is that there has been a shift in culture.   It seems that most parents are very worried about the academics but seem to have forgotten or overlooked the part that makes or change a person, which is the social emotional learning, the character building necessary to be able to learn to be citizens of the world.

A study found that IQ is only 20% of a person's possibility to thrive and be happy in the world and work <a href="http://www.eiconsortium.org/members/goleman.htm" target="_blank">(Goleman</a><a href="http://www.eiconsortium.org/members/goleman.htm" target="_blank"> 2006),</a>  yet parents tend to prefer to concentrate mostly on that 20% of how our children can be happy.   I know that for many parents, including myself, our greatest goal is for our child to be happy and fulfilled, yet we forget about the other 80% percent that will help them accomplish this.   We rob them of the experience of being independent by doing simple things like spoon feeding them past the time they can developmentally hold a spoon(18mo-2y.o.) or speak to their teacher about their grade instead of allowing the teen to advocate for themselves.  We take away the life experience of feeling fear, frustration, disappointment, and/or regret.

I understand that the parent spoon feeding their toddler or advocating for their teen with an embittered teacher is a way for us to love and protect our children, but at what cost?  My belief is that these actions are led by fear.  We fear that if our children are not academically ready, they will not make it to the best college, and will not get that exceptional job, and we will have failed them as a parent.  Academic success is tangible and concrete.  Social, emotional and moral success is intangible and ambiguous and in this world of constantly assessing our success by our exterior rather than our interior experience, we choose short term and tangible instead of long term and ambiguous.  The cost is high for the child and our society.  What psychologists, scientists, and neurologists know is that without being able to handle emotion, without being able to be independent, without being able to have had the experience of creativity and exploration, that child may be able to get into Harvard, but their anxiety level will probably take them out of the school within the first semester of their freshman year.  They may graduate from Harvard and get the stellar job, but when you ask them are you happy, they will probably respond in the negative because they are stuck with the trappings of a life put upon them, rather than a life they have independently chosen, felt, and explored authentically.

What is it about social and emotional learning and independence that makes us as parents fearful? Sometimes the answer is that we, as humans, are also avoiding feelings that we deem negative and uncomfortable and when we experience them in our children we want to avoid them or make them go away.  Helping a child be socially and emotionally competent asks us as parents to tolerate and experience these dark and negative feelings.   It is much easier to control food, books, colors, and academic achievement, so we are then making the easier choice.  My challenge to you is to feel the discomfort or the fear and get into the 80% skills that will truly help your children thrive and be happy.