Emotional inteligence
496/661anxiety. A key ability in impulse control is knowing thedifference between feelings and actions, and learning tomake better emotional decisions by first controlling theimpulse to act, then identifying alternative actions andtheir consequences before acting. Many competencesare interpersonal: reading social and emotional cues,listening, being able to resist negative influences, takingothers' perspectives, and understanding what behavioris acceptable in a situation.These are among the core emotional and social skillsfor life, and include at least partial remedies for most, ifnot all, of the difficulties I have discussed in thischapter. The choice of specific problems these skillsmight inoculate against is nearly arbitrary—similarcases for the role of emotional and social competencescould have been made for, say, unwanted teen pregnancyor teen suicide.To be sure, the causes of all such problems are complex,interweaving differing ratios of biological destiny,family dynamics, the politics of poverty, and the cultureof the streets. No single kind of intervention, includingone targeting emotions, can claim to do the whole job.But to the degree emotional deficits add to a child'srisk—and we have seen that they add a great deal—attentionmust be paid to emotional remedies, not to theexclusion of other answers, but along with them. The
497/661next question is, what would an education in the emotionslook like?* In children, unlike adults, medication is not a clearalternative to therapy or preventive education for treatingdepression; children metabolize medications differentlythan do adults. Tricyclic antidepressants, oftensuccessful with adults, have failed in controlled studieswith children to prove better than an inactive placebodrug. Newer depression medications, including Prozac,are as yet untested for use in children. And desipramine,one of the most common (and safest) tricyclics usedwith adults, has, at this writing, become the focus ofFDA scrutiny as a possible cause of death in children.
- Page 446 and 447: both parents work long hours, so th
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- Page 452 and 453: 452/661attracted to their defiant s
- Page 454 and 455: 454/661aggressive kids learn to con
- Page 456 and 457: 456/661Dana, sixteen, had always se
- Page 458 and 459: that predispose children to react t
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- Page 462 and 463: 462/661more severe episodes later i
- Page 464 and 465: Indeed, when depressed children hav
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- Page 468 and 469: 468/661The good news: there is ever
- Page 470 and 471: Learning these emotional skills at
- Page 472 and 473: 472/661study allows a clean compari
- Page 474 and 475: 474/661observed that these girls "h
- Page 476 and 477: 476/661Ben then stalks off to his e
- Page 478 and 479: 478/661being sad, angry, or mischie
- Page 480 and 481: make the difference—even when all
- Page 482 and 483: 482/661the circle of friendship wit
- Page 484 and 485: 484/661One current scientific theor
- Page 486 and 487: 486/661helped ease their anxiety or
- Page 488 and 489: 488/661treated for addiction to her
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- Page 492 and 493: ineffective. A few, to the chagrin
- Page 494 and 495: 494/661Those children who got the m
- Page 498 and 499: 16Schooling the EmotionsThe main ho
- Page 500 and 501: 500/661children who are faltering a
- Page 502 and 503: ingrained; as experiences are repea
- Page 504 and 505: A POINT OF CONTENTION504/661But as
- Page 506 and 507: 506/661could also be part of lighte
- Page 508 and 509: 508/661spiral into aggression. Whil
- Page 510 and 511: These are the topics of gripping im
- Page 512 and 513: 512/661responsibility for decisions
- Page 514 and 515: 514/661twenty thousand people emplo
- Page 516 and 517: bring in pictures of a person's fac
- Page 518 and 519: 518/661from the basics for yet anot
- Page 520 and 521: negotiated. And since that is an ap
- Page 522 and 523: 522/661Such interventions work best
- Page 524 and 525: 524/661school, Hamburg notes, are a
- Page 526 and 527: 526/661By fourth and fifth grade, a
- Page 528 and 529: 528/661into incidents like the hall
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- Page 534 and 535: New Haven schools, when teachers fi
- Page 536 and 537: 536/661responsible adults volunteer
- Page 538 and 539: 538/661such as problems with girlfr
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- Page 542 and 543: • Better able to express anger ap
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next question is, what would an education in the emotions
look like?
* In children, unlike adults, medication is not a clear
alternative to therapy or preventive education for treating
depression; children metabolize medications differently
than do adults. Tricyclic antidepressants, often
successful with adults, have failed in controlled studies
with children to prove better than an inactive placebo
drug. Newer depression medications, including Prozac,
are as yet untested for use in children. And desipramine,
one of the most common (and safest) tricyclics used
with adults, has, at this writing, become the focus of
FDA scrutiny as a possible cause of death in children.
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