Emotional intelligence key to children's success

JAKARTA (JP): "Emotional intelligence", rather than the previously much-touted intellectual quotient (IQ), determines 80 percent of a person's success in life, an expert has said.

Fawzia Aswin Hadis, a professor at the University of Indonesia's School of Psychology, told a seminar on emotional intelligence here Saturday that students with high academic performance were not necessarily the most successful in life.

Rather, students who were less bright but with high emotional quotient (EQ) fared better in life, she said. But she conceded the debate between the link of the emotional quotient and the intellectual quotient were continuing.

"Intelligence is not enough," Fawzia said, quoting American psychologists including Daniel Goleman's best-selling book Emotional Intelligence. Why It Can Matter More than IQ.

Society can help determine someone's success but most importantly it is the ability to apply intellectual capacity and emotional intelligence in school activities and face life's challenges in the future, she said.

The factors of multiple intelligence include verbal, mathematical, spatial, analysis, musical abilities and physical agility, while emotional intelligence comprises self-awareness, emotional control, self-motivation, knowing other's emotions and maintaining relationships, she said.

Another speaker at the seminar, Karlina Leksono, said that once a person knows his or her position in the world, they will have a sense of appropriate moral attitude and act accordingly.

The philosophy lecturer said that moral attitude and appropriate action would also form the basis of emotional control in children.

"The child's ability to control their emotions is key to their success to integrate in their environments while they maintain the ability to choose, formulate, contemplate and change reality," she said. "The child would then become a person able to handle life's pressures and forge their own experiences as well.

"Firstly, they are increasingly exposed to television programs filled with violence, anger and strong language for the sake of emotional satisfaction. The underlying messages of material success rather than people with character dominates the minds of today's youth," she said.

Karlina said the onslaught of buzzwords like human resources, global competition, mastery of science and technology could be misunderstood and misused for the wrong end results.

"A person's feelings and role, his or her way of handling certain feelings are what make him or her unique, not their intellectual capacity," she said, adding that this was a process for families to start early with their children.

Another speaker, educator J. Drost, stressed the importance of quality primary education which can help a child succeed at higher levels of education.

Drost said that bright students in junior high school remain bright, average students remain the same. Such realities are accepted worldwide that only 30 percent of primary school graduates are capable of pursuing a university education, he said.

He said that high school graduates are able to pass their final year exams because they are not demanding and the criteria are lax.

"This makes their level of knowledge very low not because they are stupid but because their average intellect are subjected to a heavy and complicated curriculum," he said.

He cited as examples the 85 percent dropout rate of state university students, and 90 percent of private university students. (01)