Development of a nation depends on its young lot, socialized in a balanced, supportive, caring, and motivational neighborhood milieu. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s leaders, teachers, scholars, poets, writers, workers, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, laborers, etc. The environment where they are spending the prime and basic part of their life (initial 3-15 years) may be one of the important stages associated to their future role. In other words, they can be either mold into productive well beings or confused, clueless, and misguided individuals. The present study is designed with the aim to measure the level of emotional intelligence of the young members of my neighborhood with the objective to predict the future of our kids
2. Development of a nation depends on its young lot, socialized
in a balanced, supportive, caring, and motivational
neighborhood milieu.
Today’s kids are tomorrow’s leaders, teachers, scholars,
poets, writers, workers, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs,
laborers, etc.
The environment where they are spending the prime and basic
part of their life (initial 3-15 years) may be one of the important
stages associated to their future role. In other words, they can
be either mold into productive well beings or confused,
clueless, and misguided individuals.
The present study is designed with the aim to measure the
level of emotional intelligence of the young members of my
neighborhood with the objective to predict the future of our
kids.
3. Emotional intelligence is a type of social
intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s
own and other emotions, to discriminate among
them, and to use the information to guide
one’s thinking and actions (Sadker and
Sadker, 2005).
4. Family life is child’s first school for emotional learning
(Goleman, 1997).
In this intimate cauldron child learns how to feel
about himself and how others will react to his
feelings; how to think about these feelings and what
choices he has in reacting; how to read and express
hopes and fears.
5. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, our
emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings
will determine success and happiness in all walks of
life, including family relationships (Goleman, 1995;
Bar On 2001; Palmer, Walls, Bergess & Stough,
2002).
6. Individuals with high emotional intelligence are more
successful than counterparts. They are more socially
adept, display better social skills and are able to
build long term, satisfying relationships (Arati and
Prabha, 2004).
7. Tomorrow’s youth needs to cope with lots of factors
in order to succeed in life. During the crucial period
of physical and psychological maturation
adolescents are expected to establish their own
identity and prepare for adulthood by developing
skills necessary for socially acceptable behaviour
(Kopp, 1989; Arati and Prabha, 2004). Their
interaction in neighborhood with emotional balance
could provide them better chances of successful life
in future. However, contrary to this could put their
future at risk
8. This section explains methodology
adopted for carrying out the present study.
Study area,
sampling procedure,
tool of data collection,
and data analysis is described in it.
9. The study area is Bagh Colony, Mardan
which is the place where I am living along with my
parents and brother since 1994.
I got married here. I have a daughter, a niece, and a
nephew living and socializing in this neighborhood.
Our kids are frequently interacting outside of home
environment. Therefore, it deems highly important to
conduct research in this area on a topic through
which future success of our kids could be predicted.
10. There are total 30 houses in the study area. The
houses where mostly our kids are interacting are 10.
Therefore, purposively I have selected one
young member each from these ten houses.
The age of the respondents is 20-28 years. They are
the people who daily move in the study area and
stay for night at home throughout the week.
11. A Self Rating Scale of 4 options is used for data
collection.
The statements used in the scale were derived from
the Peter Salovey’s work given in Sadker and
Sadker (2005).
12. Results in table 1 reveal
that majority of the respondents
i.e., 80% had C grade on level of emotional
intelligence
followed by B grade i.e., 20%.
13. S.No Level of Emotional
Intelligence
Range of Scores Number of
Respondents
1 A-Grade 18-20 0
2 B-Grade 14-17 2
3 C-Grade 10-13 8
4 D-Grade 5-9 0
Rating of Respondents in to four groups on the basis
of their scores in SRS
14. The low level of emotional intelligence of the
neighborhood could be due to the non-social
environment of homes as well as neighborhood where
they groomed and socialized. School and college
environment may also have its role in this bade grade on
emotional intelligence.
The low grade may also be attributed to the level of
interpersonal skills and educational level of the
“significant others” of the respondents.
The families, neighborhood, and educational institutions
which guide children rather than controlling them, could
lead them to a mature, balanced, and successful life.
Such citizens could be more productive and helpful in
national development.
15. The findings of the present study are in line with Caldwell
& Bradley (1984); Navaro (1992) who conclude that
children of democratic parents are noted to be
responsible and sensitive to themselves and to the
environment, have good grades on emotional intelligence
scale (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984; Navaro, 1992).
Therefore, poor home environment facilitates more
frequent occurrences of emotional disturbances in
adolescents (Arati & Prabha, 2004). Again the findings of
Dhoundlyal (1984) also support the result.
From the results of the present study it could be
predicted that the environment of low level emotional
intelligence could not be supportive and encouraging for
all children living in the study area
16. In the light of study findings the following
recommendations are forwarded;
To secure our children from emotional imbalances, we
need to focus on the young members of the
neighborhood for harnessing their emotional intelligence
as children are frequently interacting with them.
Literature reveals that emotional intelligence is
associated with home environment, school environment,
and peer group. Therefore, low level of emotional
intelligence of the respondents could be associated to all
the three stated agencies of socialization. So, we need to
work on these three agencies in order to improve its
social environment.
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