What's beyond the popular concept of Emotional Intelligence?  How to we go deeper in supporting our children in not just being able to talk about their emotions but in honing their ability to fully feel them?  Joining the child in their emotional experience supports the essential elements of the parent-child relationship in a way that higher level thinking is unable to address.

Experts have long known that the "go-to-your-room-until-you-get-a-hold-of-yourself-and-we'll-talk-about-it-later" parent misses a wonderful opportunity for connection, attunement and emotional closeness that will strengthen the parent child bond in favor of an intellectual discussion that does nothing to further parent-child connectedness.

Want to hear more?  Just in case you missed our popular teleseminar Beyond Emotional Intelligence, now you have another chance to listen in.  For a limited time, this one hour talk by Program Director, Julianne Idleman, will be available on the Hand in Hand website here.

At my daughter's preschool there is a little boy (2 years old) who is always getting in trouble.  He constantly takes toys away from the other children, pushes, hits and is very aggressive with the others.  He screams and cries a lot, especially after his baby brother was born.  He is desperately looking for connection from caring adults.  This morning, he came over where my daughter was playing and aggressively took the toy truck she was playing away from her.  My daughter said "no" to him repeatedly, but he just got more intent on using force.

I got very close to him, stopped him and explained that his friend was not done with that toy yet.  He threw a big tantrum and his frustrated mother picked him up and carried him away. The mother was in no shape to listen to him. She seemed tired and exasperated. I followed them as I could see the pain mounting in this child's face, and tried again to establish a connection with this boy knowing he would lash out at me.  He tried to hit me, and that was my opportunity.  I said in a funny voice "What, did you just push me? You are strong!" and I got close again, put my hands up and invited him to push me again, harder.  His face changed. He was engaged, he was looking at me, and was very interested.  He pushed and I jumped as if a truck had hit me, stumbled and spun around, totally exaggerating the situation. Then I came back for more.  By then, he was laughing.  He laughed and laughed for a while and then we went in to class for snack and this little boy was happy and cooperative the rest of the morning. I had been concerned that the mother would not want me intervening with her child. But, keeping a smile on my face and a helpful, empathetic tone of voice helped.

I got reaffirmation of the huge value of laughter and letting kids feel powerful.  I learned that I can make a difference with other children around me with very simple interventions.  -a mother in Palo Alto, CA

We possess a million-year heritage of banding together to gather food, preserve warmth, offer care to one another and teach what we have learned in life. It's a heritage that has honed our minds and our instincts to tune in closely with one another. We read each other's moods, we inhale each other's stress levels, we infect each other with laughter, with enjoyment, and with tears of joy or sadness. We have come to thrive best in each other's circle of warmth and protection. We are exquisitely designed to know one another deeply, and to thrive in one another's company.

In our long heritage of closeness and shared values, the power of stories has always been great. Think of the power of the David and Goliath story. Once we've heard it, the possibility of the mighty tyrant being humbled by the small and brave helps inform our understanding of our capabilities in the world. It's a story that can be leaned on in moments when courage is needed to face long odds.

In spite of the power of stories to inform and inspire, very few of us have a forum for sharing our parenting stories. There is love, there is dedication, there is courage, there is profound wisdom to be found in the daily stories of how we are with our children, and how our children are with us and with others. These stories travel from parents to grandparents sometimes, and from mothers to fathers and back. But when do they travel outside our tight little family circles? When do they have the chance to inspire those who don't have children? When do these stories receive a moment of respect in the wider culture? What gets the most attention there are stories of human difficulty, of failure, of things gone wrong, of people failing to care, to follow through, to band together.

This month, I want to share two stories that deserve to be told. In one, there's an unstoppable parent working hard to make sure life goes well for his child at school.  And in the other, real closeness and strides in judgment are gained because parents hold to their principles, in spite of a child unloading intense feelings of anger. At the pinnacle of a million years of cooperative functioning, these parents remember to find a listener to help them move things in a good direction, so they don't have to give up on their efforts to support their children.

"My wife and I have done our best to listen to our children's feelings throughout their childhoods so far. We're so pleased with them, and have used listening to them to help them each meet major challenges in their lives.

"Just this week, my wife and I had our first upset with our almost-twelve-year-old daughter on pre-teen socializing: she and some of her classmates were to get together to watch a movie in the home theater in the house of one of the boys in class.  Unfortunately, the majority of those friends decided that they wanted to watch horror movies. Their choice was "1408," which the reviews indicate is a truly distressing piece of work.  Thanks to your influence, my wife and I have been clear about resisting the worst of what Hollywood offers to young people.  Our daughter had big cries about being in conflict with us over this movie. My wife and I also had to process our feelings: it didn't feel good to hear how painful it was for us to limit her social life in this way. She felt badly, we felt badly. But we held our ground, knowing that the movie was not healthy for her young mind. The hardest part was that her friends went ahead with their party plans without her. 

"However, our daughter is now glad that she did not attend that party, and told us afterwards that she would not have her children see such movies, either.  We feel close: the limits didn't harm our relationship!  There will be lots more to deal with as our girls get older, but your approach and what we have been able to learn from you is invaluable.  Your work is so important!  Thank you!"  --a father in Boise, ID

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"My daughter had just entered first grade, and she was having a tough time of it. She came home upset during the first week of school, saying that her teacher had told the class that they mustn't be crybabies, and that crybabies would be sent to the corner of the room until they were ready to come back to the class. She felt shocked and worried, and didn't want to go to school. I listened to her feelings about it, but also determined to try to support her by volunteering in her class. My wife works during the day, but I work graveyard, so I could adjust my sleep schedule to help out there.  I went to the teacher, and was told in no uncertain terms that parents were not welcome in the classroom. She didn't want the extra work, and was doing fine. I was so surprised! I didn't want to give up, though.

"So I went to the first parent meeting of the year at the school, and raised my hand to say that I wanted to volunteer in the classroom, and asked how I could manage to do that. This time, the principal responded, and told me in front of everyone that they had a school policy of no parents in the classroom. End of discussion. I felt humiliated. By the end of this meeting, I had a huge headache. But I got some listening time a few days later, and I cried about feeling like a failure at supporting my daughter. It was an awful feeling. I wanted to make school safer for her, but didn't know what to do next.

"After that, though, I began to think of how the teacher must feel. If she was calling the children crybabies, she must not be feeling very good herself. She didn't know me. She didn't know what my reasons were for wanting to be in her classroom. I thought I would make one more try. So I "happened" to see the teacher one morning as I dropped my daughter off, and told her what I appreciated about the job she was doing. I had about five or six things I could honestly say I liked about her, her classroom, and what she was doing with the children. I told her I hadn't wanted to come into her classroom to bother her, but wanted to be there to do whatever she would find helpful, and that I was good at following directions, in case she ever wanted a hand for something special. And that I worked graveyard, so I had morning time available.

"A week later, I attended another evening event at the school. My daughter's teacher came and found me there. She told me she had gotten permission for an exception to be made to school policy in my case, and that she would like to try me in her classroom once a week for a month to see how it would work out. She was friendly, open, and warm.

"Looking back, I see that the listening time helped me get my own feelings out of the way, so I could think about what the teacher needed to hear. That headache I got reminded me, "'Hey, my feelings are really stirred up here-it's time to figure out what's going on for me!"  --A father in Chicago, IL

Please tell your stories, too. Tell them to friends. Tell them to those who don't have children. "Guess what happened this week!" is a good opening line for bringing your work as a parent to center stage. Tell your David and Goliath tales: mother's love wins over child's fearful aggression. Father's ability to reach for the best in his child wins over child's feelings of anger. These are the kinds of tales that nourish our faith in our children, and in ourselves. They remind us of how deep love runs, and of the satisfaction of restoring harmony in our tribes and among our people.

We're waiting for the best moments in your parenting life to appear in our communal lore. Bring your stories. Tell them. Delight us. And help us remember that unheralded people, in an unheralded profession, often show courage, overcome the odds, and can inspire us all.

All in all, I recommend this book to any parent affected by divorce. Use Listening to Children as your guidepost for connection and emotional recovery for your children, but take advantage of some excellent advice for navigating one of the toughest situations parents can face.