Emotional Literacy and Our Life

We, at our young age, should be treated by our parents, as well as people around, not as if we’re little kids, but adults who have their own point of view and are able to express our feelings and thoughts. In the same way that we talk about ourselves as being able to read and write; being literate, so too, we all have varying degrees of emotional literacy. The degree, to which we are emotionally literate, therefore reflects the degree to which we are able to recognize, understand, handle and appropriately express our emotions. Just like any other type of literacy, some of us are better at it than others.

Schools and parents tend to look at only one part of a child's life. When we look at a child's mental and emotional well being we have to look at the whole picture. One of the main factors here is the child's quality of life. Services and parents alike often simply try to meet children's basic needs such as how happy they are, what they own etc, but when we are looking at their quality of life we need to do much more than this. We should be looking at helping them fulfill their full potential.. Whilst we may think our child's quality of life is good i.e. they have all of the latest games, trainers, clothes we may actually be lowering this by not giving them enough independence or taking their views as seriously as we should.

During reading I carried out an activity that involved looking at sources of emotional and mental stress. Those I listed that could cause ill-health amongst adults were - stress at work, money worries, bad or broken relationships, being a single parent and having the ability to be able to fit in at work/in your social life. Although these were the problems I thought of, they could easily be adapted to the life of my 6 year old daughter but in a different context. Whilst I try and gloss over a lot of the problems I may have so as not to affect her I am sure she is acutely aware of what is going on. By trying to shield her from these worries, I and many other parents like me could actually be suppressing opportunities for our children to develop ways of dealing with such tensions, thus improving their quality of life and helping them to become emotionally literate.

As I have mentioned briefly above it is not only adults who have problems, children have to cope with serious adversity as well. How they cope with this adversity can be linked to the way in which they are taught to express their emotions and talk about problems. Negative coping strategies include things like ignoring the problem, blaming themselves and wishing it away. In this situation the child would be keeping everything in, taking the strain on themselves and possibly harboring any guilt.

Keeping all of these emotions shut up inside would obviously affect their emotional and mental health now and in the future. A child who has been taught to talk about his/her problems becomes resilient. They know how to express their emotions and deal with the problem. Rather than finding all of the negative points they tend to look for a 'silver lining' and deal with this in a way that solves the problem. They manage to grow up to be happy, healthy and 'together'.

Just like 'traditional' forms of literacy, emotional literacy starts with simple learning of concepts and skills. Teaching children how to listen to others, how to empathies (recognize and understand other people's feelings) and also how to recognize and listen to their own is a key factor in the 'teaching' of emotional literacy. Children who are emotionally competent have an increased desire to learn and to achieve, both within school and without. They are likely to be passionate and curious, self-confident and stable.

In the London Borough of Enfield, primary schools have started up 'nurture groups' for any children showing signs of emotional and behavioral problems. Nurture groups are special classes and provide a structured and predictable environment. These groups encourage the children to trust adults and to learn. The staff in the nurture groups have backup from the LEA's advisory staff and parents are regularly involved in informal sessions and discussions about their child's progress. (As you can see from this example there is a wide network of support for the pupil/child. They have back up from their teachers who also speak and consult with their parents, but on a wider scale the school has back up from the Local Education Authority.

Highfield Junior School in Plymouth is a school that has introduced a new code of discipline to promote positive behavior. Circle time was introduced to try and build up group rapport, identify as a class, the needs and strengths of all members, offer solutions and support to an individual when they have a problem such as bullying and to try and solve any disputes through group discussions.

Some parents tend to think that valuing and promoting emotional literacy is a 'soft option'. They feel that the values behind the teaching might be more lenient in the way bullies are dealt with. I feel that when you look at the reasons behind bullying you tend to find it is because the children concerned cannot express their emotions. They find the easiest way to deal with things is to hit out. Basically the bully is emotionally illiterate.

I would like to examine for this essay a project that has taken place at the local school where I am employed. We had a problem with bullying in our older classes and worked with 4 Year 6 pupils who had a history of quarrelling and victimizing other pupils. Our main aims were to help the pupils deal with their feelings, take into consideration the feelings of other people, develop their emotional literacy and learn new ways of behaving and managing their emotions. The children were managed by a senior teacher who had over 20 years experience. She was managed by the school SEN co-coordinator and also the head teacher. It is very hard for a pupil, who is not emotionally literate to express how they feel so puppets were used for role play, movement and dance were used for enabling them to access feelings in a less threatening way than through talking. Art was also used and the pupils were asked to paint or draw how they were feeling. Relaxation techniques were also introduced at the end of each session teaching the children ways of letting off steam rather than hitting out or shouting. Results were not expected immediately but as it was some of the children appeared to be happier and more relaxed fairly quickly. We know, as a school that the project needs to be ongoing. These children and many others after them will need support over a period of time.

Although schools have an important role to play in the development of emotional literacy, the home is the most important source of training for children. Children who come from homes where emotional literacy is promoted tend to tolerate frustration better, get into fewer fights, and have greater academic achievement. Ways of introducing emotional literacy into the family would be giving people in the family choices, letting them be heard and using everyone's strengths (even if they are the youngest member of the family).

Being emotionally literate is not only beneficial as a way for children to express their emotions. Studies have been carried out and one of the main reports in this field The Mental Health Foundation Report The Big Picture. Promoting children and young people's mental health (1999) stated that emotionally literate children are less likely to experience mental health problems in the long term. The report also stated that emotional literacy is gained from a combination of schools, parents and wider social networks. The point they are making is that due to today's environment with children being frightened of abuse, the fears on our modern roads and the fact that the extended family is no longer as tight knit as it once was, children are not used to making and consolidating friendships and dealing with conflict as they once were. They are not used to taking risks or playing team games. They see the implementation of emotional literacy as a wide scale project. As I mentioned earlier schools would have to start looking at the whole child i.e. its health and mental health as well as the academic side and mental health agencies would have to start making provision to cover the development of initiatives in this area.

Emotional literacy is an important area in childhood and something that should be promoted. Teaching children emotional literacy along with the 'normal' literacy and numeracy they are taught in the school and home environment will surely make the likelihood of them achieving maturity, balance and a higher skill level earlier in life much greater. In business employees are being encouraged to work in ways that require high levels of interpersonal skills. Emotionally literate adults can be more successful in their chosen careers and in their personal lives.

Children need to be given practice at dealing with adversity and taught how to take it in their stride. They need to be able to deal with the problems that life can throw at them and talk about the feelings they have in an honest and truthful way. In today's modern society we tend to be slightly over-protective, sometimes justifiably so, but our children need to find ways of coping with problems and developing ways of dealing with difficult situations, they need to become resilient. They cannot do this if they are shielded from problems. By promoting emotional literacy in the home and school environment we will be strengthening the children of our future and hopefully creating a calmer and more emotionally literate workforce.

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