Family life is our first school for emotional learning--not just through things parents say and do directly to their children, but in the modeling they offer for handling their own feelings.The three most emotionally inept parenting styles prove to be: 1) ignoring feelings altogether; 2) being too laissez faire; and 3) being contemptuous, and showing no respect for how a child feels.

Parenting styles that foster emotional intelligence recognize a child's upset as an opportunity to serve as emotional guide or mentor. Taking their child's feelings seriously, they try to understand what is upsetting them (Are you angry because Tommy hurt your feelings?); and to help them find positive ways to resolve their feelings (Instead of hitting him, why don't you find a toy to play with on your own until you feel like playing with him again?). Parents' effectiveness in this domain is in large part determined by their own level of emotional intelligence.

As children grow, the specific emotional lessons they are ready for--and in need of--change. Lessons on empathy begin in infancy, indeed from the moment of conception, with parents who attune to their baby's feelings. Given that such attunement is the essence of attachment parenting, this style of caregiving is pivotal in forming the neural circuitry in which emotional intelligence thrives. The difference between an outlook that is optimistic versus pessimistic starts to take shape in the womb and develops through the first few years of life. Parents can help children with the basics of emotional intelligence by: learning how to recognize, manage, and harness their feelings; empathizing; and handling the feelings that arise in relationships. The impact of such parenting is "extraordinarily sweeping." The advantages are social, cognitive, and biological. Children who grow up in this environment have lower levels of stress hormones and other indicators of emotional arousal, a pattern that may well enhance physical health.

Key learnings--emotional learning foremost among them--take place most readily in the early years of life, and severe stress can impair the brain's learning centers. Based on her very earliest learning experiences, a child learns that people can by trusted to meet her needs, or that no one really cares, and all efforts to induce comfort will fail. These lessons impact how secure and effective she feels in the world, and whether or not she views others as dependable. During the first three or four years of life, a toddler's brain grows to about two-thirds of its full size and evolves in complexity at its greatest rate. While the first and most critical opportunities to shape emotional intelligence are in the earliest years, opportunities continue throughout the school years.

The emotional abilities children acquire later in life build on those of the earliest years, and form the essential foundation for all learning. Few parents would disagree, on reflection, that a child's success in school is not predicted by the IQ as much as by emotional and social measures, such as: being-self-assured and interested; knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in an impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.

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