Emotional Intelligence

It seemed to me yesterday watching Gordon Brown's speech that he must recently have had some advice about trying to 'connect' with his people. Peter Mandelson gave a speech which demonstrated a great degree of emotional intelligence. He was able to make fun of himself, acknowledge his weaknesses and build on his strengths. And I guess that Gordon Brown's advisors have been working really hard lately on trying to make their leader more appealing, and sound more in touch with real life. But did it work? I don't know. He came across as caring and sincere but what he was saying was much of the same old stuff so it was difficult to work out if he really is making an attempt to empathise with the rest of us, put himself in our shoes. I've recorded a piece below about Emotional Intelligence....and will follow this up shortly with more details about why it matters so much in all aspects of life.

Security checks for those driving children to and from school and club events

So why are the Daily Mail (and other news outlets) getting so agitated about the new security checks for people who drive other peoples' children to school or club events...?

Do they not value our childrens' safety and security? Do they not want to ensure all steps are taken to protect them from harm and abuse?

Imagine the outrage the Daily Mail, in particular, would express if a child sometime in the near future were to be assaulted by one such parent who hadn't taken a check. They would surely me some moral grand-standing then.

It's not as if there's any moral dilemma on the issue. We need to protect our children as best we can. Enough said.

Princess Michael - control freak?

So Princess Michael has apparently been unable to resist intervening (actually ‘taking over’) the wedding of her son Lord Freddie to Sophie Winkleman.
This is making headlines all over the UK press as HRH apparently has chosen the bride’s dress, settled on the venue at Hampton Court, invited the world’s royals and now finds herself in difficulties because the bride’s parents’ generous ‘contribution’ (hardly what it’s normally called when the bride’s family pay for a wedding!) doens’t stretch far enough to provide all the delights she’s planning. As a result, it is alleged she sent her chauffeur to France to pick up Champagne from a French supermarket.
So, she’s apparently hi-jacking her soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s wedding, which is troubling enough in itself. How does she think their relationsip will develop from now on? If she thinks she’s equipped to take over such big decisions for the bride on her most special day...where will it stop?
Will she be still there muscling in on their honeymoon? Will she choose their first home, their decor, their whole lifestyle? Will she decide when they should have their first baby, be there and then be the one to decide on the name? I do hope not.
But those fanciful suggestions only help to underline just how wrong her current intervention is. It is not HER big day; it belongs to her son and daughter-in-law. One dreads to think what might happen in future years when they realise she’s stolen it from them.
And this leads me on to ponder about the whole complex relationship. I have never forgotten watching Princess Michael arrive at Wimbledon a few years ago in the company of her son. She appeared to dote on him. Indeed, their interaction suggested that she hang on his every word, laughed at his every joke. I remember thinking to myself that she was in love with him.
If anything signaled a mother who couldn’t ‘let go’, that was it. So, if she still thinks of Freddie as an extension of herself, if she still feels the world revolves around him, if he’s still the very focus of her world....what a disastrous start that is likely to portend for a marriage.
I don’t envy Sophie when they’re on honeymoon and he has to keep taking calls from his Mum. I don’t envy her the rest of her life, basically.
Her parents, who seem to be being side-lined in this whole affair would do well to be very very wary. We all know mothers-in-law who emasculate their sons. They need to make sure their daughter gets and keeps a say in every decision from hereon in....even if she finds it easy to give way to ‘the boss’ right now.

Children who Torture

So here we go again – 2 young boys accused of a violent assault on another couple of youngsters.
We ask how can it happen that boys of an age more suited to playing with Lego ( as one of the victim’s fathers apparently said) end up feeling it’s OK to amuse themselves by torturing others.
The answer’s quite simple, sadly. If a child is born into a chaotic environment where love is either absent or may be offered sporadically; if their parents are unable to offer them a basic level of care so that they often go hungry; if one parent is perpetually stoned so that she doesn’t recognise their needs or answer them; if the father shows them violent videos featuring scenes of torture.....well, hey ho, surprise, surprise, the children are likely to grow up damaged!
It all comes back to emotional intelligence. If a child doesn’t know love, how can it learn to love others? If a child is perpetually being told to go away, or shut up, or leave its mother alone because she can’t be bothered, that child is learning that his needs, including his hunger or thirst, don’t count and don’t matter to anyone. If he’s then in pain through this neglect, and no one pays any attention to his pain, how is he going to learn the value system that most of us grow up with, whereby we try to look after each other, avoid hurting others, and try instead to pay them attention and surround them with love and care?
He learns instead that people inflict pain on each other as a matter of course. He thinks from the videos that he’s witnessed that torture is normal. He has no barometer to measure his feelings against, so when he’s feeling bad, which is probably most of the time, he thinks this is normal. So the idea of making other people feel bad doesn’t bother him one bit.
Deep down, we all know this. We must all understand how these cruel children develop, how it’s their very upbringing (or lack of it) that turns them this way. So why don’t we do something about these chaotic families within our midst?
These boys were apparently known to everyone around – on the estate where they lived, by the schools they were excluded from, by the police and Social Services.
So it sounds as if basic joined-up thinking was missing.....or surely some kindly soul in one of these departments/offices/areas would have intervened sooner to take care of this large chaotic family?
And that’s what bothers me really, that our sense of kindness, our sense of humanity seems to be being eroded somehow by a culture of ‘turning a blind eye’ that’s grown up around us.