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Since the turn of the 20th century, the importance of "intelligence" (quantified as "IQ" - intelligence quotient) has been over-emphasized in almost every aspect of human endeavor.

Indeed, IQ has been popularized to such an extent that parenting and educational methods are geared to maximizing children's intellectual abilities. An entire industry, supported by reams of literature, has sprung up around sophisticated methods of IQ measurement, interpretation of IQ test results, and hence the mapping of children's career futures. Few people have been spared the indignities of being subjected to an IQ test at some point in their lives.

The beginning of this IQ fetish can be traced back to the Age of Reason in 17th and 18th century Europe, when leading philosophers began to promote "rational" thought as the path to human perfection. This trend has since culminated in today's post-industrial era, when we have come to worship at the altar of "intelligence" - the supposed panacea for the world's ills.

Thanks to the meticulous and exhaustive observations of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980), we know much about the way a child's capacity for rational thought matures and how cognitive development is linked to the functions of reason, logic, memory and language structures. Unfortunately, the importance of the cognitive faculties has been grossly over-emphasized, at the expense of wisdom about the dimension of feelings.

Consider this: In January 2000, Time Magazine voted Albert Einstein the "Person of the Century". While his achievements are certainly formidable, they have not touched anything essential to human happiness. Why do we prize brains above the heart and soul? The fact that a high IQ has often been found to correlate with depression says little for its adaptive advantages. What's more, IQ is a poor predictor of success in relationships, and has nothing at all to do with general life satisfaction or physical and psychological health. One of the saddest and most common misconceptions of our times is that a high IQ leads to emotional balance and psychological maturity.

Our intellect-driven culture stresses the need to teach children how to think, reason and perceive. We are new and unsteady beginners in our efforts to teach children how to feel, how to create, and how to navigate successfully the choppy waters of human relations.

However, you may be glad to know that after a long love affair with the IQ, the honeymoon is just about over. Finally, it has been recognized that intelligence, just like money, cannot ensure happiness. Interest in children's emotional development is gaining in popularity and has gained renewed attention from psychologists.

"Emotional Intelligence", a term coined by Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind (1983), describes a domain of human consciousness that has, until recently, been seriously neglected. The study of emotional intelligence and how to nurture it in our children is undoubtedly the next frontier in social evolution. It is currently enjoying an explosion of academic attention, with Amazon.com already listing over 50 titles that deal with the subject. Even mainstream schools are starting to move away from teaching methods based solely on competition and intellectual development, opting instead for a more cooperative approach to developing children's emotional aptitudes.

Nowadays there are also efforts by psychologists and educators to define the concept of emotional intelligence; to devise instruments for measuring it in individuals (EQ); and to teach its properties to both children and adults alike. It has finally been acknowledged that EQ is more important than IQ when it comes to "people skills" - success in career, in personal and business relationships, and in raising fulfilled children. The abilities to recognize, manage, and appropriately express one's own feelings have little to do with intellectual functioning, but are more vital to our well-being and overall success in life. Emotional intelligence is what determines the way we cope with painful change, disappointment, stress or adversity. An undeveloped EQ can ruin work prospects, undermine relationships and contribute to all sorts of addictions in even the brightest people.

Emotional intelligence includes, among a host of other things, the ability to deeply empathize with others, to lead wisely or follow with grace, to honor our limits as well as celebrate and fulfill our talents and to give and receive love and support. Relationships cannot be truly intimate, nor can they grow, without a deep sharing of our emotional inner worlds. Most of us have learned early in our lives to hide or ignore our feelings, to believe that they aren't important, and that is why relationships can become stunted and dull. More pertinently, our ability to inspire and impart emotional intelligence to our children rests on our own mastery of feelings and our willingness to learn and grow in this area.

In one way or another, we are all struggling to refine, develop, and expand our emotional and relationship skills. Life, with its pain and joys, could be considered a "big school" for the emotions.

Any committed relationship, whether it be business or personal, requires a great deal of emotional intelligence - not just to stay "together", but to remain alive and dynamic. Although most of us can claim to be "fine" or "OK" most of the time, few remember how to feel deeply, how to experience bliss or joy.

Following are some questions you might ponder to gain insight into your own emotional terrain and to understand more clearly what is meant by "emotional intelligence". Please remember that this is not a quiz; EQ is not quantifiable. When it comes to emotional intelligence, we are all on a voyage of discovery! These questions are designed to provoke reflection about areas of your emotionality, that you might like to expand or develop. Some of the questions may seem a little banal at first glance, nevertheless, do take the time to consider how each item applies to you personally.

Relationship Faculties

• If you are sad, grieving or mourning, do you allow yourself to weep? Do you allow others to see your tears?
• Can you express anger freely and non-destructively, then let it go?
• Do you quickly let go of grudges and resentment?
• When you are afraid, do you let trusted others see your fear?
• Do you let yourself know that you are afraid?
• Do you take notice of your emotional and interpersonal needs, and express these needs assertively? Respectfully?
• Are you able to recognize when you need help, then ask for help or support?
• Can you receive help, as well as give it?
• Can you say "no" without feeling guilty?
• Can you strongly protest against mistreatment?
• Can you make decisions without feeling easily taken advantage of?
• Do you easily express, as well as receive, tenderness, love, passion?
• Can you enjoy your own company, yet gladly and comfortably accept intimacy?
• Do you listen clearly to yourself, and to others?
• Can you empathize with the needs and feelings of others, without judgment or criticism?
• Can you accurately perceive what others are feeling, and feel compassion for them?
• Can you motivate others without resorting to fear tactics or manipulation?

Emotional Fluency

• Do you allow yourself to frequently experience and enjoy pleasure?
• Do you allow yourself to experience bliss, ecstasy, excitement, fascination, awe?
• Do you often laugh out loud - a deep belly laugh?
• Do you sometimes feel moved by the courage or the spirit of others?
• Can you contain (rather than repress) your impulses and delay your gratification, without resorting to guilt, shame, or suppression of your emotions?

Flexibility and Balance

• Can you focus your energy on work, yet balance this with fun and rest?
• Can you accept and even enjoy others who have different needs and world views?
• Do you let yourself be spontaneous, play like a child, be silly?
• Are your goals realistic, and does your patience allow you to work towards them steadily?

Self-Esteem

• Can you forgive yourself your mistakes, and take yourself lightly?
• Can you accept your own shortcomings, without feeling ashamed, and remain excited about learning and growing?
• Do you respect your strengths and vulnerabilities, rather than inflate with pride or fester with shame?
• Would you say you are generally true to yourself without blindly rebelling or conforming to social expectations?
• Can you bear disappointment or frustration, without succumbing to criticism of self or others?
• Are you kind to yourself, or hard and even punishing?
• Can you self-motivate?
• Can you gracefully accept defeat and failure and still feel OK about yourself?

You may even like to ask significant people in your life how they see you in terms of these questions. Your areas for potential growth are signaled by those questions you answered in the negative.

Our unfamiliarity with emotional intelligence means that we will continue to suffer, on a large scale, from social ills arising from emotional disability and injury. In Australia, poor emotional and relationship skills are directly to blame for some of the highest rates of depression, youth suicide, and problem gambling in the world. A deficiency in emotional resources is the basis for our epidemics of eating disorders, substance addictions, and bullying in the playground or work environment. Consumer greed and gullibility to seductive advertising are driven by a massive lack of emotional fulfillment. Our fledgling emotional resources leave us floundering in stagnant or dull relationships, or hurting from broken partnerships and shattered families.

Fortunately, unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be learned and expanded throughout life. Goleman (1995) speaks of nourishing parent-child interactions as the essential building-blocks of emotional intelligence. We build our emotional structures by imitating our parents, and through our responses to the way in which we were brought up. In his book, Building Healthy Minds (1999), Stanley Greenspan M.D. states that what we learn about relationships and emotions in our early childhood years - when our central nervous system is growing most rapidly - is "engraved" into our neural pathways. As with the learning of languages, new emotional competencies can be acquired later in life, though with considerably more effort. The absorption rate is highest in early childhood, and it is for this reason that, as parents, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility of most significantly affecting our children's EQ.

Most people can bring children up into functional adulthood, but we all fall short in one way or another when it comes to providing the optimal environment for our children's emotional development. It is very difficult to give them what has not been given to us, and hence we are restricted by the insufficiencies of our own childhood, and by the limited credence and support that our community gives to the realm of feelings.

For some time now, psychologists from various schools of thought have been trying to trace the way in which emotions develop in children, much the same as Piaget defined the stages of cognitive growth. A guide map describing precisely how emotional intelligence unfolds can be extremely useful in helping us to promote and facilitate emotional fluency in our children. In the following pages, I intend to summarize the psychological and emotional needs specific to each of the five stages of early childhood psycho-emotional development. By implication, each stage requires a different set of conditions, and a specific approach to caring, if the emotionality of the child is to flourish. I recognize that none of us can consistently provide these conditions at any stage because we are limited as parents, humans, and as a community. A yardstick of what is ideal is not to be used for self-criticism but as a directional marker, since parenting also entails a growth process and developmental journey for the parent.

The development of our core, characteristic emotional make-up is set down in layers over roughly the first seven years of life. Patterns established here aren't necessarily set in stone; however, emotional learning is most powerful at this time due to a child's exquisite openness and vulnerability. When a child's basic emotional needs are met at each stage, the foundation is laid for emotionally intelligent responses that will be automatic and spontaneous later in life. On the other hand, the acquisition of new relationship skills and emotional competencies in adulthood can often be an arduous process, triggered by painful situations.

The five childhood rites of passage that I wish to describe are rooted in biological changes, and are therefore universal and not generally subject to cultural nuances. Each stage finds the child trying to master (with our help) a specific developmental task and emotional function which will prepare the ground for self-image and later relationships. It is during the first rite of passage that the child establishes, at his or her deepest, core level, a sense of self-worth and value for life itself.

First Rite of Passage: The Right to Exist

What is happening: This developmental stage spans the second trimester in the womb, through birth, and the first six months of life. Recent research published in the Journal of Perinatal Research and The Secret Life of the Unborn Child (Thomas Verny, 1994) demonstrates that the fetus is surprisingly aware of, and responsive to, its mother's feelings, as well as to a range of stimuli in the nearby environment, such as bright lights, loud noises, music and even the quality and tone of other people's voices. From within the womb - before an awareness of "self" has emerged – the fetus is profoundly affected by the emotional environment surrounding it, since it is constantly linked to maternal mood states and attitudes via hormonal ebbs and flows. The fetus responds to stress with visible signs of agitation, while settling peacefully in response to favorable emotional climates. How the parents feel about him sends ripples through the baby's primitive consciousness - he records and senses their joy at his coming, or ambivalence or even hostility to his presence. Neither the fetus nor the neonate have a capacity for boundary formation: mother, environment and self are one, with no differentiation. Consequently, the baby is highly absorbent of parental emotions; he feels and becomes identified with what the parents are feeling, about themselves and about him. In this innocent and permeable state the baby registers how his parents feel toward him as the very nature of his own being, and begins to form around this experience his deepest attitudes to himself, and to human life.

At birth, and for months afterwards, the baby is extremely vulnerable, and so aloneness or lack of human warmth can bring about the deepest of terrors and despair. The imposition of regimented feeding and sleeping routines is experienced by the baby as a shattering break from her own natural inner rhythms.

Optimal developmental experience: The ideal situation is one in which both parents long for the child from a position of organic, emotional and financial preparedness. Both parents are sufficiently emotionally fulfilled and ready to give and love selflessly, and are able to pleasurably meet the enormous demands of the helpless infant. Ideally, help is at hand from a supportive family and community (it does take a village!) when the parents are otherwise occupied or feeling exhausted.

Non-traumatic birth is free of emergency or defensive obstetrics, which the acutely sensitive newborn experiences as violence and shock. Unfortunately, modern labor ward birthing methods focus on emergency measures while severely ignoring the emotional and psychological needs (and fragility) of both mother and child. The unnecessary physical separation of mother and baby soon after birth constitutes a brutal discontinuity from the intimate contact of the womb. The transition into the outside world is critical in giving the baby information about the nature of the environment he has entered. Therefore, his arrival needs to be extremely gentle and sensitive, into a warm, holding and non-violent world where the child will be joyously welcomed (see Frederick Leboyer's Birth Without Violence, 1995). The parent's joy at receiving the baby is the essential ingredient of his spiritual nourishment. Ideally, baby and mother need to remain constantly physically together in order to foster bonding and healthy attachment. A warm, soft, supportive and constant holding bathes the baby in feelings of contentment and security, which orient her toward emotional balance and well-being. Both mother and infant require protection from conflict or intense disharmony during this fragile time.

Loving eye contact and tender vocalization satiate the baby's hunger for human sustenance, and provide a subconscious reference for loving and empathic relationships later. It is vitally important, around the dawn of life, that the child's few and simple physical and emotional needs be met on his terms, according to his own organic rhythms, rather than according to the parent's (and society's) needs for routine, peace and quiet, etc.

Millions of years of evolution have fine-tuned the human organism in such a way that a baby's cry always signals the need for some kind of attention. The emotional equanimity and vitality of the baby rests in the parents' responsiveness to these needs. The baby thrives best in constant physical contact (carried in a sling during the day, co-sleeping at night). Liedloff (The Continuum Concept, 1975) aptly refers to this period as the "in-arms phase". The last thing a baby needs is a separate bedroom! Such is the pace of transition, which we have evolved to biologically and psychologically require, from one-ness with mother's (and after birth, also father's) body to gradual and gentle separation.

Developmental Task: The most primal emotional competencies are learned earliest in life. The way our passage through this stage unfolds imprints upon the basic sense that: "I have the right to be here" and that "I am welcome in the world". The emotional cornerstone of inner security is positioned at this time, as are the basic building blocks of healthy self-assertion and of trust in one's own feelings. The right conditions engender deep feelings of belonging and of being intrinsically connected to community and Nature.

The main wounding experience: A baby's natural experience of pleasurable and blissful connectedness is sabotaged by schedule-based rearing methods. Enforced and imposed routines disconnect the baby from her organic, natural rhythms long before she is ready for self-containment and bring about an early interruption to the flow of feeling. Parental non-responsiveness, cold or mechanical handling, insufficient holding or frequent abandonment, are all shocks to the crystalline sensitivity of the baby. An insensitive, rough or violent environment is experienced by the baby as utterly shattering and even annihilating.

Regrettably, our culture - backed by mainstream pediatrics - has tended to deny the emotional acuity and receptivity of infants under two, which has given rise to their tragic isolation in bassinets, cribs, and playpens, and the disregarding of their cries for touch and nurturing. Deep feelings of alienation, separateness, unworthiness and even hostility can result from these earliest and most primal needs not being met, feelings which, even when masked much later by superficial functionality, manifest in disturbances of relationships or intimacy.

Emotional Function and Core Beliefs: Some core beliefs arising from injurious experiences during this stage include: "I don't belong", "I am worthless or loathsome", "Life is dangerous or terrifying", "I am alone in the world".

Some core beliefs arising from a positive experience at this stage are: "It is safe to be me", "I belong here", "I have the right to be here", "I have the right to show the way I feel", "It is safe and OK to feel my feelings", "I can accept conflict as part of life", "Life is essentially safe and nurturing". A healthful passage through this stage enables people to feel secure, connected to their feelings, practical and realistic. Thinking and feeling remain in harmony with each other, rather than becoming opposed and separate faculties. The opportunity exists here to prepare the groundwork for a strong, core sense of Self.

Potential Adult Manifestation of Injury: Withdrawal is the only psychic defense available to the baby at this time, and therefore shocks experienced here can lead to a demeanor of remoteness or aloofness. The movement is away from contactual relationship with others, toward excessive intellectualization; a state of analytical detachment from life, or a tendency to reverie. The adult becomes uneasy in the unpredictable world of feelings and emotion, and therefore over-emphasizes the "reasonable", the "rational", the "logical" - or the "abstract" and the "philosophical". A fragile countenance or hyper-sensitivity to hurts and slights are also legacies of wounding during the first rite of passage.

The following article constitutes Part II of a three-part series looking at the developmental stages of infant emotional intelligence. It draws upon a long tradition of research and clinical observation by psychologists and psychiatrists (from psychoanalytic and body-oriented psychotherapy disciplines) including Wilhelm Reich, Alexander Lowen, Chris Campbell, Stanley Keleman, Margaret Mahler, Louise Kaplan, and more. Second Rite of Passage: The Right To Need What is Happening: From immediately after birth to roughly 18 months, the baby's focus for need-gratification and aliveness is centered in and around her mouth. The unfolding drama of this time revolves around the baby’s expression of need; her reaching out and taking in of physical and emotional nourishment. Her arms and hands, her skin, and most of all her mouth, are exquisitely alive centers of awareness that pleasurably connect her to a nourishing world. While the baby is still so vulnerable and dependent, many cultures advocate breast-feeding on demand and co-sleeping. The baby is seldom put down and remains in near-permanent physical contact with a loving parent or older sibling, at least until she shows signs of wanting to crawl and walk. Beyond the mechanical and nutritional advantages of breastfeeding are the psychological and emotional benefits, and the spiritual or energetic nourishment that comes from loving, warm contact between breast and mouth. Sadly, the baby-bottle cannot replicate the comforting or the unique, mother-child attenuation, that comes from direct, flesh and skin intimacy. Under the right circumstances, breastfeeding floods the baby with a blissful sense of wholeness and completeness. There is a stream of pleasurable sensations which pulsate throughout her body when her powerful sucking reflex is met with what she naturally longs for. A repository of serenity and contentment is thus established deep within the mind-body of the infant, available for access later in life. If this unique mother-child bond is provided according to the baby’s need-cues rather than the robotic exigencies of modern-day schedules, a dense layer of emotional security and contentment is installed, leading the child to think of the world as a friendly, nurturing and abundant place. The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) reports that, around the world, the average age of total weaning (defined as complete cessation of breastfeeding) exceeds 4 years! In: "Breastfeeding, A Guide for Medical Professionals" (1985), Ruth A. Lawrence puts this figure at 4.2 years. It is evident that breastfeeding affords a vital psychological sustenance that goes on long after it is nutritionally essential. Our surprisingly early weaning standards certainly warrant revision. In our Western predilection for premature rupturing of the oral mother-child connection, we have introduced an unnecessary and often traumatic element of struggle and heartache into the weaning process. Fortunately, we are at least moving in the right direction. We are experiencing a growing acceptance of demand feeding, later weaning ((the World Health Organization, lactation experts and pediatricians now recommend weaning at two years, and preferably older. The child's changing needs are the most reliable guide) and increased professional support from lactation consultants and counselors. Optimal Developmental Experience: At this time, parents (particularly Mother) who feel generally well supported in their lives, and who have been adequately nurtured themselves, will be capable of spontaneous and empathic responses to their baby's physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Ideally, the baby is breastfed on demand, with attention paid to the spiritual and emotional mother-child connection, as well as the material nourishment. This includes the tenderness conveyed through holding, and eye-contact that communicates the pleasure of mothering. Contrary to the fast-track trends in modern childcare in the West, this is not the time for the child to learn about independence. The baby should sleep very close to or in bed with the parents at this stage, staying connected to them through their scent, their sounds, and their touch. If listened to, the infant issues very clear indications of their readiness to begin flirting with autonomy. They reach for the ground so they can feel themselves against the earth. They look away from Mother to the mystery and allure of distant objects. They move their limbs in early strivings to self-propel, thence to crawl and walk. Yet for the most part, they still want to be inside or near Mother’s orbit. Our task as parents is to release our babies according to their need, rather than to expel them according to ours. In the meantime, touching, holding and body contact is still needed frequently to constantly, and the baby benefits from being carried in a sling or otherwise on the body. Typically, babies who are offered this kind of environment tend to be more placid and content, as long as the parents are relatively unstressed in their giving.
If the infant at the oral stage of development is allowed the occasional comfort-suckle at the breast until she naturally self-weans (usually much later than Western custom demands it) the next level of psychological independence develops naturally from a stronger base of emotional equanimity. Developmental Task: The child is at this time trying to learn that it is OK to need, to reach out interpersonally and to ask for what she wants. At a core level she is also learning about deserving, and the joy of receiving. What can be imprinted during this stage is that satisfaction and fulfillment are a birthright, always worth vigorously and assertively pursuing. Our capacity for interpersonal care, giving, and generosity is most authentic to the degree that our passage through this time was favorable. True independence, as opposed to defensive self-reliance, can only spring from satiation of dependency needs.	True independence, as opposed to defensive self-reliance, can only spring from satiation of dependency needs.
The Main Wounding Experiences: When a baby of this age is left alone to cry for extended periods, and is refused the holding and attention that she is calling for, this has profound and long-term consequences for her emotional make-up. She deeply absorbs the message that she mustn’t ask for what she wants or needs, her impulses to reach out collapse and she becomes resigned. She is not as yet equipped to cope with delayed gratification, and therefore experiences rigidly scheduled feeding, early weaning and "controlled crying" as abandonment and neglect. On the other end of the scale, over-anxious and over-indulgent parenting startles her and disturbs her natural serenity, interrupting her need to express her accumulated emotional stress. The middle road consists of being guided by the baby’s cues, and letting her take the lead. Emotional Function and Core Beliefs: Some core beliefs arising from injurious experiences at this time include: I must do it alone, I must show that I don't need anyone or anything. I don’t deserve love, I am not loveable. I am loveable only if I don't have emotional needs. I am only loveable when I am "giving". Others’ needs are more important than mine. My happiness depends on being liked by others. Some core beliefs arising from positive experiences during this stage include: I have a right to have and to express my needs and wants. Life nourishes me. Life is plentiful and abundant, and I deserve Life’s generosity. I am free and fulfilled enough to care for others. Others have a right to their needs too. These are the emotional foundations underpinning the capacity to be appropriately assertive, and to be direct rather than manipulative or seductive. The fulfillment of these essential developmental needs is the font from which we can later draw a natural generosity of spirit. Full gratification of infantile need is also what gives us the capacity to be genuinely respectful of others’ needs and limits; to gracefully let go when someone says "no" to us. The organic strength that enables us to sustain disappointments, and to cope with the fact that we don’t always get what we want, springs from early childhood satisfaction; not from premature, enforced "independence". Initiative, self-motivation, emotional stamina and endurance, patience - all of these qualities are fostered when the optimal conditions are encountered at this second stage of development. True independence, as opposed to defensive self-reliance ("I don't need anyone"), is paradoxically the product of dependency having been embraced. Emotional independence enables us to care deeply for ourselves, it empowers us to reach out to others for intimate connection, yet also to let them go. Potential Adult Manifestation of Injury: When our needs go unanswered at this oral stage of development, this leaves us stuck in dependency, living as if waiting for Mother to show up, subconsciously longing for the lost bliss of unity at the breast. We "suck" at and cling to relationships, food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling or material goods. We feel as if life owes us, waiting passively for things to change, or impatiently grasping at life. Unfulfilled at the core we remain as "suckers", gullible to the seductive wiles of P. R. machinations, merchandising campaigns and "charismatic" individuals. An individual whose needs of the heart are essentially met is less susceptible later in life to co-dependent relationships, idolatry and addictions. A healthy passage through this time contributes toward a healthy skepticism later. One is not so easily fooled, and will be more perspicacious in relationships. Our co-dependent clinging in relationships provides no contentment, so we blame each other for our personal dissatisfaction. We fantasize romantic notions of a "true love" which lasts forever, a fanciful and symbiotic union that will meet all our needs for love and understanding; and thus we harbor unrealistic expectations of one another. Alternatively, we convince ourselves that we don’t need anyone, but collapse with exhaustion or bitterness. The unsatiated grow up to become insatiable. The breathless greed that afflicts our civilization is no more than the cry of the emotionally malnourished baby disguised in adult garb. Third Rite of Passage: The Right To Support What is Happening: This stage spans from 6 months to two years. It is during this time that the child begins to take his first frail and uncertain steps away from symbiosis, toward autonomy. Until roughly 18 months, the baby has not fully learned to distinguish his mother as separate from himself, and he experiences himself and Mother as part of one continuum. The fledgling move toward differentiation is of necessity fragile at first, and tentative. There is frequent regression back to Mother's (and increasingly Father's) side. Differentiation is made real for the child as he gradually discovers and masters his motor power to set his own direction, through crawling, standing and walking. Primitive speech patterns are now erupting, and all these changes begin to give the toddler his first sense that he can exert some influence over himself, over his environment, that he can start to exercise choice. He can articulate some basic needs with growing specificity, he can reach out and independently explore the world beyond Mother. A veritable revolution is taking place; a radical and momentous shift in how the toddler experiences himself in relation to the world. This transformation is both exhilarating and frightening. This third stage marks a tenuous threshold of transition from babyhood into childhood, from prostrate helplessness to the boldness of standing. The developmental drama which unfolds at this time is about personal power, the power to exert some control on the environment as the child begins to learn to stand, to take his first steps and to utter his first words. Optimal Developmental Experience: There needs to be an abundance of support provided at this time. Support is only true support if it meets the child's needs as they emerge. In other words, support for the child's sake, as the child needs it, rather than "encouragement" to progress at the rate expected by parents or others. The toddler needs his parents behind him as he tentatively steps out to explore. He wants us to share in his wonder as he becomes more agile, to hold him when he stumbles, to be his unfailing safety net when he becomes afraid. He does not want us to cajole or pressure him to "make progress". The child’s innate rhythm sets his pace; if allowed he will come to walk and talk without hurry or push. Appropriate support therefore embraces him both at his strength, as at his frailty. Now that the toddler is mobile, boundary-setting becomes an issue. Realistic safety boundaries can be defined compassionately, clearly and respectfully; without resorting to punishment or shaming. Developmental Task: At this time, the toddler is learning whether he can trust in the support of others. He needs to find that it is OK to reach out for and receive support, as well as to rely on his own strength; that it is human to be vulnerable as well as strong. This includes trusting that his vulnerability will evoke care, rather than manipulation, seduction or shaming. It also involves the experience that his strength will be respected, and not exploited by others. He needs to distinguish help that is genuine from help that is manipulative, or bait on a hook. His autonomy and personal power are there to serve his own development, not others’ expectations. Hopefully, he will learn by example that true personal power comes through honesty, not through domination. Finally, the toddler wants to learn that love is only real if it is love for being himself, not for being what others wish him to be. The Main Wounding Experiences: The child’s growing personal power is a central theme at this time. There are a number of ways in which the wrong kind of support can distort personal power so that instead of being based on honesty, it is based on manipulation, seduction or the use of force. Here are some of the ways that this might happen: Unfulfilled or lonely parents at times seek comfort in their child, exploiting the child’s willingness to be there for the parents’ needs. The parent may not be consciously aware that they are loading the child with their own unfulfilled emotional needs, inadvertently leaning on the child, who then grows up too quickly. The pay-off for the child is that he gets to feel special. It is very tempting at this time to manipulate the child to exceed his own need for supported growth. The trap lies in the temptation to make the child special for being a "champ", or compelling him to make Mummy or Daddy proud. This orients the child toward performance, or showing off: adults become their appreciative audience, as the child splits off from his authentic self to project an image or role designed to get the positive strokes. In the quest to have the "wonderful child" that we can gloat about, "support" becomes manipulative and exploitative. Encouragement to perform more competently (feats of walking, talking, being "cute") risks being seductive to the child, who willingly rises up to meet the parental expectation. He trades in his inner pleasure for the power to entertain, gratify, and thereby control others. Seductive encouragement stands in contrast to a sharing and celebrating of the child’s own pleasure gained from his accomplishments. Some children are turned to by one parent to fill the space of an absent, inadequate or alcoholic partner. Responding to the parent's cues, and sensing the parent's pain, the child grows prematurely to become "Mama's little man", or "Daddy's little girl". In order to meet the adult’s emotional need, the child must learn to deny his own frailty, his own need for support. He quickly learns to abandon his true, childish self, and to present a false self-image scripted to enchant his parents. Inside, he feels deeply betrayed, and becomes suspicious and mistrustful; yet he adapts: he gains control over the parents by pleasing them, by disguising his vulnerability, and by becoming indispensable. It is alarming how young a child can mold himself to the role of protector, healer or confidant. This prematurely developing child becomes astute about other's unspoken needs, and gains control by promising to meet those needs. The abuse this time consists of over-empowering the child, who is given (or intuitively picks up) the message that the parent is dependent on him. As boundary-setting becomes increasingly important, punishment, shaming and humiliation rear their heads in authoritarian families. Dismayed by the new exuberant mobility of the toddler, parents try to wrest control by dominating or overpowering the child. Children respond to domineering parents with alternating "good behavior" and rebellion. They soon get the impression that relationship is about control, manipulation, about might-is-right; and they begin to act accordingly. As babyhood wanes, boys in particular are humiliated for their vulnerability; they begin to hear such messages as: "Boys don’t cry, Be a man, etc." He soon learns to puff up his little chest and be "tough" for his Dad. The more the child strives to act out the qualities he feels are expected of him, the more he loses touch with his natural self. The child is metamorphosed into the clever, precocious little grown-up that takes care of his parents, or impresses their friends. There is the tough little kid, the seducer or actor who by rising above child-like innocence and vulnerability, reaps parental pride and positive strokes. Emotional Function and Core Beliefs: Optimal support at this time leads to core beliefs such as: I have the right to be supported. I can reach for support from others without shame, and without fear of being used, exploited manipulated. I have the right to be afraid, to feel vulnerable, to feel weak. It’s OK and not shameful to ask for help. Being "up-front" and honest works better than manipulating, scheming or pretending. I am loveable for who I am, not for the image I present. Core beliefs and attitudes arising from injurious experiences at this stage include: Never trust anyone. Always suspect other’s motives. Always stay on top, in control, preferably in authority. I am not a worthy person unless I am a "winner". If I lose, then I am a worthless, shameful "loser". If I let people in close to me, they’ll see my weakness, and I’ll be used. Vulnerability is shameful. If I'm really honest, I'll be manipulated. People only love me for what I can give them. I am safe as long as I can manipulate others. People can be easily manipulated, once you know what they need. Potential Adult Manifestation of Injury: When he learns early in life that he has the power to gratify his parents, this gives the child an over-expanded sense of ego. The introduction of harsh "discipline" or control at this stage begins a hardening of the personality. The results are either an overly dominant personality, or an individual who has learned to control through making promises and being seductive; through pretense. Personal power is distorted in meaning, and is exerted through domination, threat or seductive promise. A proclivity to mistrust others inhibits any show of weakness, and he therefore maintains control through denial of his human vulnerabilities and shortcomings. The persona presented to the world can be charming, charismatic, intimidating, even larger-than-life. Yet he will seem unreal and inauthentic to those who look for his humanness, or his earthy-ness. Personality types range from the charmer to the tough-guy; from the actor, the rock-star, the wily salesman, to the dictator. Our system of commerce is based on the interplay of seduction and gullibility; a dovetailing of dysfunctions stemming from the second and third rites of passage. The generally credulous attitude to "image" and P. R. springs from unfulfillment at the second stage, and provides a fertile ground for the work of seductive advertisers, marketers and P. R. illusionists. Our model of "strong" and implacable authority breeds submissiveness and hero-cults, and dates back to unresolved issues from this third early-childhood rite of passage. The stage is set here for a "winners-and-losers" mentality, and an attitude of exploitative dominion toward the world and its resources.

The Fourth Rite of Passage: The Right to Freedom

What is Happening: The theme of this rite of passage is about the development of "free will". Between the ages of two and four approximately, the child is trying to learn that she can be separate and different from her parents. She wants to find that she can have her own will, her own mind, her own body, while retaining a sense of her inner "goodness", and still be loved by her parents.

Having been nurtured at the earlier, more dependent stages, the child is starting to explore the larger world, wandering further and staying away longer from the safety of a parenting presence. To the extent that dependency needs have been fulfilled, the toddler now starts to bring boundless energy to the flight to freedom, as she asserts her separate self-identity. Tentatively, the child is learning the safe and appropriate range of autonomous individuality, her freedom to want and feel differently from Mother. Efforts to differentiate begin in earnest, so the child now needs support in the shape of being let go of, yet warmly received when she runs back to the parent’s side. The parents act as a safe "home base" for the exploring child.

A vigorous assertion of individuality takes many shapes at this time: she runs away, she yells at her parents to "go away!". The child is now finding immense pleasure in saying "No!", she will want to taste the power of this word over and over. The maddening frustration of childhood powerlessness is momentarily averted through the joy of being contrary. This experiment serves the critical function of strengthening her boundaries and her separate self-identity, which she is now defining through opposition. Flaunting her new-found strength can be delicious; she may occasionally relish defying her parents just for the delectation of feeling her selfhood, and her "otherness".

The organic basis of any individual's will power comes from having been respectfully allowed, in those early years, one's own rhythm around vital functions such as toileting, feeding and sleeping. If the child is not excessively controlled around these functions, a strong sense of autonomy will be rooted in a healthy trust of her own body and internal biological rhythms. It is fortunate that these days, toilet-training is decreasingly a battle-ground, ever since pediatricians and psychologists began to advise a later and more self-regulated transition to the potty.

Bliss is now found in freedom, rather than in symbiosis with the parents. The toddler has become more robust, as long as the emotional and psychological needs of earlier stages have been fundamentally met. This enables and prepares the child to withstand a certain measure of conflict. It is of paramount importance that she be given the right to protest her disappointments and not be crushed for speaking out. As long as she isn’t cruelly punished or humiliated, her tolerance for disagreement grows stronger and her resilience matures.

Optimal Developmental Experience

The child at this time needs to be allowed her to-and-fro forays into independence, at her own pace. She needs to be given the right to self-regulate and thus find her own safety boundaries wherever possible. The challenge for the parent revolves around the imposing of healthy, safe limits and introducing respect for others without guilt-tripping, shaming or otherwise crushing the child’s spirit. The toddler asks us to farewell the baby, and to welcome the self-regulating child; she is adamantly wanting to make her own mistakes and thus develop competency.

We need to understand that although the child at this age will defy and oppose us, she still deeply needs security and holding. It is important for the parent to not get caught up in a power struggle, not to contribute to a battle of wills that pits the "righteous" against the "misbehaved". Children have too long been condemned for their powerful emotionality at this age; they stand accused of all sorts of nasty "attention-seeking" schemes - as if the need for attention is an offense! Much has been written about how to conquer and defeat the tantrum-throwing child, precious little has been said in support of the powerless child’s right to express her rage. Toddlers don’t need "taming", as the pedagogical Dr. Christopher Green (1986) professes; they need our empathy and respect, and they need to witness the respect you have for yourself. Might we instead, as parents, wonder at the astonishing emotional potency of our children, something which for most of us has been buried. When the child defies us, resists and protests, she needs to be given some space to do so. Her self-confidence depends on being allowed this strength. She doesn’t need parental capitulation, just some empathy and some leeway, for all she is saying is: "respect my free will".

Indiscriminate permissiveness is not an alternative; it is not OK for the child’s behavior to be damaging to herself or to the parent. This is the age when kids begin to need to know you through your boundaries. If you can set strong limits non-violently and non-abusively this sets a powerful example and helps them to feel your strength and your presence. Without realistic interpersonal boundaries then you don’t seem "real" to them and they feel lost, confused and sometimes angry. They may provoke you, searching for your solidity. Opportunities abound at this time for the child to acquire a healthy relationship to the notion of interpersonal boundaries.

Developmental Task

The child is now learning much about the pleasure of aloneness, of wandering off and exploring the world unaccompanied. She is also beginning to learn that differences and distance are substantive to healthy relationships. By learning to withstand and survive conflict and disagreement, she learns that love encompasses and includes opposition. She can now begin to articulate her frustrations and disappointments, a function that will be vital to her well-being throughout her life. Now are sown the seeds of the ability to "follow one’s bliss"; to become self-regulating and self-directive, to locate and trust one’s "inner authority". She is now attempting to relinquish, sometimes forcefully, her identification with her parent’s emotional states and attitudes. This disentangling process is essential if she is not to feel overly responsible for others" feelings later in life.

Her task now is to carry her inner feelings of pleasure, fullness and satiation, which were previously dependent on Mother, into autonomous existence, that is, to begin to master the making of her own "bliss".

The Main Wounding Experiences

Most wounding at this time is brought about through our attempts to control the child’s powerfully expanding sense of self, and her movements toward freedom and self-mastery. When the child begins to assert her independence, it is not unusual or unnatural for parents to feel rejected, and hence react possessively. Parental love can become smothering at this stage if we over-protect, or douse the child with so many rules, "shoulds" and "no's" that their natural exploratory impulses become stifled, and held in. It is much more desirable to child-proof the environment and accept some degree of chaos, mess, disorder and lack of punctuality. The child’s exuberance and freedom wither under a parental regime of obsessive or excessive interference, over-preoccupation with cleanliness, orderliness, propriety, "good" manners, or obedience.

The guilt-trip is used as a major form of control at this time. This dynamic creates a child who is excruciatingly aware of her parents" discomforts and hurts. The child learns to crushingly constrain herself in order to not "upset Mummy or Daddy". She or he copes by becoming "nice", a "good girl" or "good boy", yet harbors spitefulness deep within.

As the child’s language becomes more sophisticated, words are often used to impose shame on the child. Labels used to scold her can accumulate a powerful resonance in the impressionable mind of the child. Her self-identity is being shaped around the things that she hears about herself, and thus words used against her have a profound impact on her behavior and self-image. Words such as "bad", "naughty", and "wrong", all strike a blow at the heart of her self-esteem. Dualities of reward and punishment, or "good girl/boy" and "bad girl/boy" admonitions, split her consciousness, and reduce her to an approval seeker. The more the child orients herself toward gaining reward and escaping punishment or shaming, the more she abandons her natural self-hood. Her spirit crushed, she survives by becoming submissive and compliant, by presenting an outward "good little child" image that conceals her spite and obstinacy.

The premature parroting of "please" and "thank you" reflects the child’s attempts to meet adult expectations, or to do "the right thing". "Good manners" will therefore rarely have meaning for the "well behaved" toddler other than in pleasing authority. Social etiquette, when imposed at this stage, will do very little to instill in the child a true empathy for the needs of others.

Emotional Function and Core Beliefs

Core beliefs arising from positive experiences at this time include: I have the right to be free, to be autonomous, to make my own decisions. I have the right to be assertive, to be different, to stand out. I have the right to strongly and vigorously express who I am, my feelings. I have the right to be unique and creative. I have the right to my own space and privacy. I can approve of myself even when others don’t approve of me.

Some core beliefs arising from negative experiences from this stage include: It is up to me to take care of others. If people who are close to me are hurting it is my fault. To be free means to be alone. To be intimate means to be trapped. Deep inside, I am shameful. I am safe if I follow suit. Life is a struggle, to be toiled at. Love is duty, obligation. Life is a series of "shoulds".

It is a major goal of this rite of passage to master differentiation, an ingredient that is pivotal to the formation of mature relationships. Intimacy can be experienced as confinement unless it encompasses distance and separateness. When we remain unnecessarily responsible to or burdened by the feelings of others, this indicates that we have not fully embraced our separateness. Consequently, self-assertion or saying "no" are often closely followed by feelings of guilt or shame. This rite of passage finds the child endeavoring to learn to strongly express feelings, assert differences, and let go of grudges.

The opportunity exists here to lay a strong foundation for freedom of thought, which rests upon a non-compulsive response to "authority". A heartfelt, spontaneous tendency to be caring and considerate toward others stands in contrast to, and should not be confused with, a "good-boy" or "good-girl" persona. The latter is usually fueled by deeply held feelings of shame, guilt, fear of punishment, and longing for approval.

Potential Adult Manifestation of Injury

Many of us live our lives saddled with "shoulds" and "shouldn’ts", our relationships bound by an excessive sense of duty or obligation. Pleasure and spontaneity elude us as we battle inner demons of guilt and shame. We groan under heavy burdens of self-imposed responsibility. An exaggerated concern with "doing the right thing" restricts our mobility, creativity, and the willingness to take risks. A smothering, shaming or punitive environment at the fourth stage can leave us tending toward negativity, pessimism and lack of self-confidence. At work, we plod slowly and painstakingly, guarding against the disapproval of others. When we are over-awed by "authority", we live defensively, as if afraid of "getting into trouble". We suffer from hypersensitivity to the expectations of others. Self-protection takes the shape of either excessive and unquestioning compliance; or obstinacy and stubbornness. When our own natural exuberance has been crushed, the exuberance of others can make us uncomfortable. Fourth-stage wounding is discernible in the "martyr", who whines and complains instead of expressing anger directly, who holds grudges, and festers with resentment and spite.

The Fifth Rite of Passage: The Right to Love

What is Happening

From around three years to six years of age the focus of biopsychological development moves fully downward to the genitals, so that the child becomes aware of a full infantile sexual charge permeating his body. Up until this point, nerve endings in the genitals had not provided for so much awareness or arousal there. As this new consciousness function emerges, it is experienced by the child as integral to his being; his genitals, heart and head are one. For the child of this age there grows an exploratory preoccupation with his genitals. He is delighted by the deeply pleasurable sensations discovered there, and the way these can radiate throughout the rest of his body.

Children are in love with their parents at this stage, and when they reach to embrace their loved ones they bring their infantile sexual energy to the embrace. Loving contact now encompasses the whole, connected, physical self. The child’s sexual longing for the parent is not to be confused with adult sexuality or the adult sexual act of intercourse; it is merely about the sensual energy of love flowing throughout the whole body of the child, for whom affection has become increasingly physical and sensual. As the fact of gender differences dawns on the child, he is overcome with curiosity about the nature of his own sexuality, and the variances between boys and girls.

Optimal Developmental Experience

Optimally, the parents are unashamed and unafraid of loving-sexual energy, and are enjoying a fulfilling and active adult sexual partnership. These conditions (quite rare!) enable the parents to remain open, unthreatened and loving in the presence of their child's sensual aliveness, without censuring or turning away from the child. Moreover, the sexually healthy and satisfied parent does not over-respond to the child's emerging sexuality with overwhelming and inappropriate adult sensually charged advances. Continued warmth and non-interference support and free the child to develop the basis for an adult sexual self-identity that is free of shame, guilt, or fear; as well as an inclination to be respectful of self and other's sexual boundaries. As self-discovery unleashes the child’s curiosity and thirst for understanding, his questions need direct, simple and truthful answers.

Healthy children will begin to fondle and stimulate their genitals around this time, and at times they innocently exhibit themselves. If the child’s masturbation is not interfered with in any way, he learns in a natural way that he is master of his own body, and thus avoids developing distorted attitudes to sexuality. It is, after all, the child’s right to explore and celebrate the abundant pleasure that his body so generously grants him. A child is better protected from violation or interference if he is confident in his right to self-regulation and privacy. It benefits him to learn that he has the right to expect and demand privacy: "my body is my own, and I decide what happens to it!"

Developmental Task

The "genital" stage of development is a precursor for mature sexual love; the seeds are sown here for the child to learn about loving and being loved with his whole being, his whole body. He seeks to acquire and develop the psychological foundations of sexual love unencumbered by shame, or by disrespectful attitudes. If he can become well grounded in the pleasure function of his body, the child evolves a positive and balanced attitude to pleasure in general.

The Main Wounding Experience

Injury to the child's sexual identity can take the forms of rejection, condemnation, or violation. Shaming or moralizing responses to the child’s burgeoning sexual exploration can produce an up-tight temperament, or result in rebellious sexual acting-out later in life. The child defends from parental judgment or disgust with a rigid and inflexible attitudinal armor that protects his heart by blocking soft and tender feelings. Both direct injunctions against his sexuality, and unspoken parental embarrassment or discomfort, are experienced by the child as a heart-breaking rejection of his expanding self. Fearing punishment, or sensing a withdrawal of parental affection, he blames his emerging sexuality and reacts by suppressing or splitting-off this part of himself. Thus begins the separation of sex from love, genitals from heart. The need for love and for pleasure is sublimated, and substituted by a need to achieve, hence he re-diverts his energies toward competition and a high accomplishment-drive.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the child whose emerging sexuality is exploited or violated. Some children suffer increased and inappropriate physical embraces at this time, from adults who, without necessarily realizing it, are turning to them to satisfy their own unmet physical needs. An alarming proportion of children (conservative studies say 25%) are exposed to some form of outright sexual molestation. Violation in any of these ways can have a wide range of disturbing and devastating long-term effects for the child.

Emotional Function and Core Beliefs

Core beliefs arising from positive experiences at this time include: I can love with my whole being, and be loved for my whole being. Life is meant to be pleasurable. Work is meant to be pleasurable, interesting and fulfilling. A healthy passage through this stage produces a self-identity based on one’s gender, grounded in sexuality. Sex and love remain united, the sexual act being about loving union and surrender. Strengths that we are trying to develop at this time include: a balance between work and play stemming from a healthy attitude to pleasure and relaxation. Acceptance of failure with grace. Acceptance of tenderness, sweetness. Flexibility of opinion, tolerance, non-rigidity.

Some core beliefs arising from negative experiences at this time include: I am unlovable, I am not good enough. I am sinful. If I am fully sexual I am dirty or shameful and I’ll be rejected. Or: "my worth comes from pleasing others sexually". "Sex is just a nice, fun discharge of energy, and it is separate from love". "Sex is about conquest". "Good" sex is about performance, "skill", and points on the score-board". "Rightful" sex is defined by strict "moral" codes; things like masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality, are "wrong", "kinky" or "evil".

Emotional competencies established at this time include: Strong boundaries around sexuality, that is, the ability to say "no": "no" to unwanted sexual demands, "no" to others" expectations of "good performance". A respect for other’s boundaries. A self-confidence that means not feeling compelled to agree to sex or use sex for contact or social acceptance. Lack of shame of one’s body. A connectedness to one’s sexual needs and a willingness to express those needs, appropriately and respectfully. Confidence in one’s sexuality based on being a lovable, sensual and vital individual, rather than on fashionable looks or performance targets. Full orgastic potency.

Possible Adult Manifestation of Injury

Almost none of us have emerged unscathed from this developmental stage. The immensely rich and diverse range of human sexual behavior is suffocated by shame, ignorance and rigidity. We think we live in a sexually liberated society, yet much of what passes for "liberation" is compulsive, exhibitionist, or based on high-performance or "conquest". Compulsive, serial promiscuity and rigid fundamentalism are two extreme poles, both reflecting a legacy of either repressive or abusive up-bringing. Inner conflicts and tensions surrounding our sexuality keep us from experiencing our full potential for pleasure and fulfillment. The human body is in its entirety capable of integrated orgasm, yet for most people pleasurable orgastic pulsation is restricted to the genitals at climax. Deeply held bodily tensions that defend against childhood hurts inhibit our capacity to fully surrender to the loving ecstasy of a total-body orgastic release.

When sex and love are separate entities, this reduces sex to a discharge function that lacks tenderness or intimacy. For some, sex is used as a currency to bargain for company, comfort or control, a means of proving our worth. Conversely, some find it difficult to be sexual with those they really love.

Our exaggerated emphasis on looks, tight bodies, washboard stomachs and fat-less thighs reflects our displaced eroticism: we are more excited by superficial and transient qualities, than by sensuality, warmth and vitality. Pleasure is viewed with suspicion in our repressed society. Instead, we take pride in how "hard" we can push or drive ourselves. Unbalanced task-orientation gives birth to the workaholic and the compulsive high-achiever for whom the playful poetry of living remains out of reach.

Concluding Comments

As psycho-emotional development continues throughout life, there are additional stage-specific learnings and challenges that we all face, each adding new layers to the personality. However, psycho-emotional structures formed during these first five stages comprise the core of our emotional make-up, and hence govern our characteristic or pattern-like relationship styles. Some caution is warranted to avoid over-simplification or rigid determinism in the interpretation of how early-childhood emotional injury affects personality. Although most people carry some wounds from childhood, many are able to compensate by creating unique and surprising traits and abilities. It is a common paradox that wonderful gifts can have their genesis in childhood injury. What can be said with certainty, however, is that significant deviations from meeting the child’s stage-specific, basic emotional needs, are always hurtful and sometimes damaging to the child.

Parenting instruction manuals tell you a lot about "what to do when…", or "what to do if…". What they rarely help you with is how to cultivate your own emotional capacities: the strength, groundedness, endurance and spaciousness required to be lovingly present for your child. Certainly, our education, socioeconomic circumstances, and the amount of emotional and practical support available are important factors in how we fare as parents. However, it is the parent’s own personal childhood history, with its unique blend of oft-forgotten joys and sorrows that holds the key to any individual’s parenting capacity. In order to become effective parents, it is particularly important to recollect how we ourselves once felt as children. We need to re-establish contact with our own emotional histories if our parenting decisions are to be driven by an empathy that can see and feel the world from a child’s point of view. How often do parents discover, sometimes with mortification, that under stress they begin to sound just like their own mother or father did? It is when we have lost our connection to our own childhood feelings that we risk being automatic in passing on to our children the way we ourselves were treated, for better or for worse.

A holistic approach to parenting includes a continual yet sensitive self-inquiry. Areas that we find persistently difficult may at times reflect our own forgotten wounds. When we are perplexed or confronted by challenging parenting situations, it can be fruitful to ask ourselves, "what was happening to me at the age that my child is now?" By re-activating our childhood feelings and memories, children help us to highlight that which wants healing inside each of us; and thus they furnish us with countless opportunities for personal growth. Our children not only make us better parents, but also better people, and in that regard they give us as much as we give them. Without knowing it, they help to shape our emotional intelligence as we contribute to theirs.

EQ Questions "High order" questions engage the whole brain. Six Seconds calls these "Fusion Questions" because they combine emotional intelligence with other kinds of thinking. Try these on your next car trip: What would if be like to have no feelings? What is the opposite of anger? Of grief? What is the difference between shame and remorse? How many emotions can you have at once? If you were able to give someone a gift of a new feeling, what feeling would you give her/him? What color would you put with each feeling or emotion? (Love, joy, fear, sorrow, etc.)