23 rd October 2018 2nd November, 2018 23rd November, 2018 7th December, 2018 21st December, 2018
Learning to Become EQ Parents
The last session of the 10-hour EQ parents programme for Sunday school concluded on last Sunday and children joined the tea party happily along with their parents. Before the tea time, Moms and Dads told their kids the story of how Little Mushroom became a confident child using the picture version of 《Little Mushroom is Confident》. With guiding questions from their parents, they were led to share their own merits and strengths. Children aged around four to five shared proudly of their fluency in Mandarin, ability to speak Japanese and excellent dance performance. Another child even shared her home-made craft of a pumpkin lantern which could accommodate two people. With parents’ guidance, they understood well that self-confidence together with perseverant practice and hard work are much needed to achieve their dreams and their goals
In a flash, the 10-hour EQ parent programme was ended in delight and the result was better than expected. Our parent participants had learnt the basic principles in enhancing children’s emotional intelligence and they did properly complete their assignments every week by applying these skills in their everyday life.
Parents attending the programme believe that the cultivation of an EQ child would require EQ parents and a family with EQ culture. There were parents who purposefully arranged a chat time with their children every night before going to bed. In that short 15 minutes, both parents and children would say caring words to each other, such as the daughter would care if her Mom had recovered from a flu, the Dad would remind his daughter to eat more fruits. By verbally expressing the concern in mind, the family love was better felt and a more harmonious relationship was built. After completing the topic of “Helpfulness”, parents would work on cultivating their children’s good habit of helping others at home. Everyone would share their experience and feelings of giving a helping hand. The mother asked children to hang clothes together. When brushing the teeth before bedtime, the mother hanged the towels for her child and the daughter squeezed toothpaste for her Mom. What a heartwarming scene! Through the programme, parents also learnt how to tell stories in an appealing way and how to counsel children with negative behaviour and emotions. The guidance process not only helps channel children’s emotion, but also let them learn to grow in different life experiences.
It was encouraging that all participating parents agreed that they had to create and make good use of opportunities to cultivate a positive family atmosphere and culture, which is delightful, caring and appreciative. When children show negative emotions, parents should not evade the problems. Instead, they would guide their children along to recognize, to share, to face and to manage their emotions. Most importantly, parents have gradually become good friends of their children since they are young, accompanying them during their growth and enjoy a harmonious happy family life together.
Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Chief Author of 《Little Mushroom: Emotional Intelligence for Children》 cum
《Little Mushroom Story Books , Family Edition Series》
21st December 2018
Feedbacks on Emotional Intelligence Education
We believe that emotional intelligence can be acquired, internalised and applied to become good habits, and virtue. Children can start learning in early childhood to recognize, communicate and manage the emotions of theirs and others. We are buoyed up by the feedbacks from kindergartens that adopted 《Little Mushroom : Emotional Intelligence for Children》 for a year!
The teachers found that children gradually understood and shared everyday life emotional experiences, such as ‘appreciation, self-confidence and calmness’. When children saw their classmates fail to complete certain tasks and lose confidence, they could use encouraging expressions such as “Carry on, we will support you!” and “Well done! Good job!”
After children had acquired more vocabularies and expressions for emotions, they could express their emotions and feelings better. In addition, they could also apply words they had learnt in situational oral practice, such as “I appreciate you for your…” There was a time when a bee flew around the school, suddenly the teachers heard a child say, “Don’t panic, take a deep breath and think”.
When children encountered negative emotions such as anger and anxiety, they could talk to others about their feelings and the reasons for getting angry and anxious, which alleviated their negative emotions.
Kindergarten students could also apply the emotional skills in handling emotions of theirs and others. For example, when the children queued up, they would remind each other to be patient. When they encountered new challenges, they dared to try even though they were afraid or worried. Other children would give them support, encouraging each other to build up confidence. When one of the children got a temper, others would remind him/her to stay calm and take a deep breath. For relatively more impulsive friends, they would say, “Stop and think twice!” in order to calm them down. For angry friends, they would advise them to drink a cup of water and take a deep breath to calm down.
Children’s positive mindset and behaviour have made schools a more caring place. They would proactively help others and had polite and respectful manners. They were more willing to help others, such as giving a hand to friends who needed help to put on an apron, assisting teachers in cleaning up the table and tidying up the toys. When their friends or teachers were sick or unhappy, they would take the initiative to show their care.
All these positive feedbacks have encouraged us to put more effort in emotional intelligence education to cultivate an emotionally healthy and caring younger generation for our society, making the world a better place to live in.
Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Chief Author of 《Little Mushroom: Emotional Intelligence for Children》 cum
《Little Mushroom Story Books , Family Edition Series》
7th December 2018
Six Steps of Emotional Intelligence
When my team and I worked on 《Little Mushroom : Emotional Intelligence for Children》, we shared a common belief that emotional intelligence can be acquired, internalised, and applied to become good habits, characters and virtue. Emotional intelligence can be learnt systematically and the younger start the better. As early as the toddler stage, children can start learning to recognize, communicate and manage the emotions of theirs and others’. Our belief is consistently manifested in the six course books 《Little Mushroom : Emotional Intelligence for Children – Affective & Character Education》 published in September 2017 for kindergartens and 《Little Mushroom Story Books, Family Edition Series》to be published in July 2019.
Through diversified, lively and interactive teaching and learning methodologies and parent-child activities, we help children gradually get hold of the skills to master emotions and enhance their emotional intelligence.
We categorize the six stages of emotional intelligence as follows:
- Emotion Awareness: Through stories of our lovely cartoon character, Little Mushroom, children understand different emotion scenarios. After listening to the appealing stories , teachers and parents raise guiding questions to let children share their own emotion experience and stories . Besides, via activities like coloring pictures, pasting stickers and making choices of everyday life situations, together with teachers’ and parents’ guidance, children learn to identify different emotions.
- Emotion Expression and Communication: We teach children verbal and non-verbal expressions of emotions by situational oral practice, chats and conversation aided by appropriate body language and interesting role-plays.
- Emotion Management: We can cultivate children’s optimistic and positive mindset in their early stage of development, let them learn to console their own emotions by positive thinking and self-talks. Through simple and interesting role-plays and games, children can get used to sharing their feelings and learn how to face and handle emotions.
- Awareness of the Emotions of others: When children listen to other people’s stories and experience, observing others’ body language and learning to listen with a heart. Gradually they will be able to understand and recognize other people’s emotions.
- Sharing the Emotions of others: Let children learn to elaborate non-verbal messages from other people’s body language and facial expression. They are encouraged to practise using empathetic verbal expressions and understand the emotional needs of family and friends.
- Managing the Emotions of others: Teachers and parents can guide children to respond to other people’s emotional needs in different emotion scenarios. They will practise the use of proper body language and verbal expressions in sharing other people’s positive emotions as well as comforting and responding to the negative emotions of families and friends.
Young children in the modern world enjoy a living environment of technological advancement and abundant materials, and thus grow much smarter than their seniors. If the significant others in children’s life, such as their beloved teachers and parents, can care more about children’s acquisition and practice of emotional intelligence, I am sure our beloved younger generation will be happy and healthy in their growth and development.
Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Chief Author of 《Little Mushroom: Emotional Intelligence for Children》 cum
《Little Mushroom Story Books , Family Edition Series》
23rd November 2018
Emotional Intelligence is the key to a successful and happy Life
Everyone has emotions. Emotional intelligence is to add intelligence to the emotions we are endowed with. Why can emotional intelligence bring us joy and happiness?
Because emotional intelligence can bring us:
- A healthy body: emotional intelligence can boost the immunity of the human body. Those who stay optimistic, happy and companionable will be healthier; on the contrary, those who stay gloomy, irascible and lonesome will not only have no friends but also suffer from poor health.
- A healthy emotional state: the emotions of happiness, helpfulness, companionship and love can keep one bright; those who are patient, positive and persevering can face their problems with no fear and live their life full of positive energy.
- An outstanding academic result: researchers in emotional intelligence studies traced children who could exercise postponement of satisfaction at the age of four and found that 20 years later those children generally scored higher in the SAT in the US. Academically outstanding students are usually more positive, perseverant, and well-planned. They can always resist temptation and keep up with their effort.
- A good interpersonal relationship: if one can understand his/her own emotions and is able to manage it properly, he or she is generally able to understand the emotions and needs of others. He /she knows how to communicate and share, to comfort and deal with the negative emotions of others. Such a person usually has good interpersonal relationship and is popular among friends.
- A successful career: people with emotional intelligence are usually good leaders, since they understand their teammates’ thoughts and know how to communicate and compromise. They are also competent in making negotiation to reconcile differences and resolve conflicts. People with the above skills must be well supported by their subordinates who will work for them wholeheartedly, and achieve win-win situations in the organizations.
If one can possess a healthy emotional mindset, an optimistic attitude towards life, an outstanding academic result, a good interpersonal relationship as well as a successful career, he or she must be a blissful happy person
Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Chief Author of 《Little Mushroom: Emotional Intelligence for Children》 cum
《Little Mushroom Story Books , Family Edition Series》
2nd November, 2018
Education on Emotional Intelligence should Start from Families and Schools
In our modern society, many unfortunate incidents are wrong expression and handling of emotions. Worrying news headlines include: campus violence; a doctoral candidate stabbed his once favourite supervisor who did not give him an A grade for his graduation dissertation; the husband of an eighty-year-old couple chopped his wife to intense bleeding because of some trivial matters; a high school student committed suicide by burning charcoal at home when he was abandoned by his girlfriend. More shockingly, a 10 year- old primary school student climbed over the school roof-top fence and plunged to her death in the playground in response to the peer pressure in which she was teased and bullied by her classmates.
All of the above echoed with Daniel Goleman’s concept of Emotional Hijacking. Human beings have both emotional and rational brains, each of which will learn to grow. At some time in one’s life when the emotional brain encounters severe blows, the rational brain would succumb to emotion if good emotional habits and intelligence have not been well cultivated, resulting in ‘Emotional hijacking’. No matter how profound a person’s academic background and knowledge are, uncontrolled emotions will dominate and unexpected shocking tragedies will happen. As Goleman documented, for anyone aiming to gain academic and career achievement, intelligence quotient ( IQ) contributes about 20% to the factors that determine life success. Emotional intelligence such as positive and optimistic attitude, perseverance, sense of empathy for others, ability to handle frustrations, good listening and communication skills makes great difference.
Emotional intelligence means adding intelligence to the emotion we are endowed with. Enhancing emotional intelligence is the key to elevate success factors for a happy life.
I believe that emotional intelligence can be acquired, internalised, applied and become good habits. Emotional intelligence can be learnt systematically. As early as toddler stage, learning to recognize, communicate, face and handle the emotions of oneself and others can start. Schools and families are the starting points as well as the first classroom for emotion education. Fostering such salient life skills is significant responsibility that parents and teachers can never evade. With timely, quality education on emotional intelligence, we can build a caring and harmonious family atmosphere and school culture, a more harmonious community and a better world.
Dr. Hong Lo Chi Chun
Chief Author of 《Little Mushroom: Emotional Intelligence for Children》 cum
《Little Mushroom Story Books , Family Edition Series》
23 rd October 2018