Over the last few years, we have discussed ensuring our children learn about Emotional Intelligence. Though there is a place for that to be known, it has evolved into something toxic in our culture. Emotional intelligence has the opposite effect of what we would like it to have. If not teach them how to be emotionally intelligent, what do our children of today need to be functional human beings? Today, I will break down emotional intelligence and the truths many people are unaware of.

The definition of emotional intelligence is the capacity or ability to be aware of one’s emotions and to be able to express them in a manner that will cultivate personal and interpersonal relations. This definition doesn’t say how a person will create emotional intelligence or why a person should even want to become emotionally intelligent. Today, we live in a world where people have become soft. This “softness” is under the guise of emotional intelligence but is a weakness.

One of the greatest pushes for emotional intelligence is in our school system. I initially believed that emotional intelligence would be necessary for each school to curb the rising bullying issues and make the students functional members of society. I have learned that being emotionally intelligent will only set you up for failure. This may shock people who believe in it, but emotional allegiance is an emotional weakness.

As I said earlier, we are living in a weak mindset society where people are soft. They will fall apart at the seams at the inkling of opposition. I noticed this when I was 18, but it didn’t become clearer until I was teaching in the schools. I have found that though we want the students to be able to express their emotions, it shouldn’t be under the premise of emotional intelligence. Sometimes, it is ok to sit with your emotions as long as you know what they are.

The one exception for teaching emotional intelligence in schools with some exceptions will be in the younger grades of Pre-k and Kindergarten. I say these two grades and not others because the brain starts to form differently from grades 1-2, so how we approach emotional acknowledgment should be different. During these young grades, we learn about many things for the first time and build our vocabulary, so we do not know how to express ourselves fully. Understanding different emotions help not only us but the adults around us understand our needs.

If you are younger and feel a certain way, it will lead to frustration if you do not know how you feel. This is a critical moment in the brain’s development to understand what is going on and what feelings are. If we cannot identify or place our emotions in certain boxes, we will become emotionally insatiable later in life. Though emotions are spoken about and learned, there are limits that we must acknowledge as educators.

There has been a big push in the LGBT community as of late, and we are becoming more inclusive. I have no qualms if someone wants to like someone of the same gender. However, this belief should be a household conversation. What I mean by household conversation is that the parents or guardians should be the people who instill specific beliefs in the child. For example, a child is not born homophobic or racist; it is taught at home. That means the child will learn from their environment and its behaviors.

This relates to emotional intelligence because, through this discussion, we are told to be accepting and tolerant of people. We will even go as far as to talk about knowing how you feel about your gender. This is where all the craziness of boys thinking they can be girls and girls pretending to be boys comes about. This only confuses and will later cause emotional stresses that can be avoided.

Today, some of the harshest and most strict bullying tactics are happening in the school. Just recently, there were two big stories of a bully. One story was about a girl being attacked on a bus by an older student, and the other was about a high school girl who was bullied and ended her life because of the incident. I am in no way, shape, or form promoting bullying. I will say that bullying can be a healthy thing to a degree.

In a way, schools are like a trial period to the real world. We only get some of the features but are given enough to be equipped to learn and find a way to survive. All this talk about emotional intelligence and making students and people more in touch with their emotions is a nice idea, but it fails the test of human experience and actual life. Yes, we want people to be good people, but it is not done through emotional intelligence.

If someone wants to express their emotions, there is a way to do that, but it will depend on many factors. First, after learning about basic emotions in the early grades, they should be left to experience the world with only adult supervision. There should be no part from the teachers and parents’ sides to make their children believe in what they want. However, with so many teachers thinking their opinion is worth teaching to their class, parents should make it a point to teach their children the truth. Well, what is the truth?

The truth is hard to swallow for many, but everyone needs to take it at some point. I will not sit here and lie to children, but again, some adults are so deranged that they believe the lies they are sprouting. There is a difference between boys and girls, and there is a difference in how we should raise a boy and a girl. A boy needs to know how to control their emotions, and a girl needs to know how to work through them. Women are just more emotional creatures through biology.

This is not to say that men do not have emotions, but men operate under different rules. Do you know that more men today are incarcerated for violent crimes than women are? Do you believe this is an emotional intelligence problem? I am sure some of you will believe this because if we can emasculate men and make them more feminine, they will be less violent. This concept is akin to bringing a lion into your home and treating it as a pet. They might never attack you, but lions have animal instincts and will act on them if the situation sparks it.

Knowing that our genetic makeup is a factor in how we process emotions, we have to ask ourselves, if not emotional intelligence, then what? The answer is that we need guidance along the way in life. There is no age limit to the amount of guidance a person can have. In my practice, I teach people today how to think about emotions; let me tell you, it is a mess. I have men thinking like women and women thinking like men. As you can imagine, the mess this can create. Think of it as labeling sugar as salt and salt as sugar. When you take a bite, you will be given a shock the brain was unprepared for.

The good news is I have created a guide through my years of teaching and coaching to help parents and teachers understand how a child should learn to reach their full potential sooner than later. The first thing to know is what I already spoke about, which is to teach them the basic emotions, i.e., happy, sad, angry, etc. The second step is to teach them the golden rule: treat everyone as you would want to be treated. The third step is similar to step one, which is to know the age for certain complex emotions and mindsets.

The best institution for raising a child is in a two-parent household with a man and a woman. I know there is a lot of talk about same-sex parents raising children, and I cannot tell you for sure, but I can share my experience. I have noticed that with same-sex parents, their child has more anxiety than one in a functional two-parent household between a man and woman. During childhood, the father should allow the mother to care and love for her child, and he should protect and provide as he should, but at age seven, the father should begin to teach the child the truths of the world.

If the child is a boy, the father must teach that boy how to be a man. He will have to teach that boy how to create value and protect what he cares for. If that child is a girl, the father must teach her how to preserve her value and know her worth as a woman. The difference between men and women is not only biological but that women are born with their value and must preserve it. While on the other hand, men need to create value and protect it.

Around the time the child becomes a teen, the responsibility must be shared with both parents. The mom should continue to be affectionate, and the father should continue to be strict. This will give the child balance and structure and help them stabilize emotionally. At no point in the process did we have to talk about our feelings because the child has learned through the raising process and the wisdom of their parents. Eventually, that child will go off and cultivate relationships and live through trial and error before learning what works and doesn’t.

One of the things they will learn either at an early age or later age is that emotional intelligence does not work. Yes, we want to know our emotions and those of others, but there is the aspect of emotional intelligence that we must ensure that we do not hurt others for any reason. I hate to say it, but sometimes people need to get their feelings hurt. We live in a woke culture where people live in a fantasy clown world. They believe these lies only create weakness in their constitution, and weak people create tough times in the end.

So the answer to emotional intelligence is simple, know it, but do not believe that is the answer to the issues we are facing today. We should go the opposite way and learn to be fighters instead of carebears. We live in a harsh world where not everyone will care about you as you would them, so knowing how to be strong and resilient is essential in our world today. Your Super Power is controlling your thoughts, feelings, and actions, not walking around with your emotions on your sleeve.

Until then,

Michael Rearden

Founder of Reven Concepts