Most parents are concerned about how their children are doing in school. We want our kids to do their homework, go to class, study, and eventually establish some kind of career, whether it be through college or learning some kind of specialty skill.

To help them along the way, some parents help their kids with their homework, hire tutors, or even give rewards for good grades. What parents usually don’t think to do to make sure their kids have academic success is ask them how they are feeling, check in on their friendships, and make sure they are building social skills.

However, despite our focus more on academics than on emotional development, it turns out that emotional intelligence can be just as important for academic success as our traditional measures of intelligence. Some studies have even suggested that emotional intelligence is a better predictor of school achievement than IQ (Goleman, 2005).

These days most researchers and practitioners don’t necessarily refer to social-emotional skills as emotional intelligence, but instead, typically use the term social-emotional learning (SEL). Social-emotional learning is the process of acquiring the ability to recognize and manage your own emotions, take the perspective of others, establish and maintain positive social relationships, and handle interpersonal situations with competence.

Why would this........

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