Dan Kindlon Quotes

expectations, rules, and requests for compliance often drives the best-intentioned parents over the edge.

We build emotional literacy, first, by being able to identify and name our emotions; second, by recognizing the emotional content of voice and facial expression, or body language; and, third, by understanding the situations or reactions that produce emotional states. By this we mean becoming aware of the link between loss and sadness, between frustration and anger, or threats to pride or self-esteem and fear. In our experience with families, we find that most girls get lots of encouragement from an early age to be emotionally literate - to be reflective and expressive of their own feelings and to be encouragement, and their emotional illiteracy shows, at a young age, when they act responsive to the feelings of others. Many boys do not receive this kind of with careless disregard for the feelings of others at home, at school, or on the playground. Mothers are often shocked by the ferocity of anger displayed by little boys, their sons of four or five who shout in their faces, or call them names, or even try to hit them. One of the most common complaints about boys is that the are aggressive and 'seem not to care.' We have heard the same complaint from veteran teachers who are stunned by the power of boy anger and disruption in their classes. Too often, adults excuse this behavior as harmless 'immaturity,' as if maturity will arrive someday - like puberty - to transform a boy's emotional life. But we do boys no favor by ignoring the underlying absence of awareness. Boys' emotion

If you ask a boy, 'How did that make you feel?' he very often won't know how to respond. He'll talk instead about what he did or plans to do about the problem. Some boys don't even have the words for their feelings--sad or angry or ashamed--for instance. A large part of our work with boys and men is to help them understand their emotional life and develop an emotional vocabulary.