This document discusses emotional literacy and challenging behaviors in children. It defines emotional literacy as developing awareness of one's own and others' emotions in order to make informed choices. Challenging behaviors in children are now viewed as emotional and behavioral difficulties rather than medical issues. Such behaviors stem from experiences like trauma, rejection, and low self-esteem. Effective emotional literacy programs in schools involve flexible teaching, trained staff, support for positive behaviors, and addressing the needs of the whole child. Teachers play a key role by maintaining structure, showing empathy, reinforcing success, and communicating with families.

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Synopsis
Emotional Literacy- a missing priority
Someone said “Education is the capacity to make informed choices”. Sensing, understanding and using
emotional information from ‘within’ and ‘without’ oneself in order to make informed choices is therefore
really a literacy program. It involves skills training, as well as developing personal awareness .This is
exactly what tour Upanishads and Vedas said about education. Swami Vivekananda said that “Education is
the manifestation of the divinity that is already present in man “
If there is already a divinity that is present in man, why are we seeing children with very unruly behavior
and disturbed and distorted outlook? Why are then children of today having so many issues of behavioral
problems? Where has the divinity gone? These are the questions that we educationists need to ask ourselves
before we try to understand the term emotional Literacy.
What is Emotional Literacy?
What are called challenging behaviors?
Why are they called so? And why is it a priority?
What are the causes for it and what are the ways to handle this?
These are the contents that we are trying to answer in this conference
Earlier, challenging behavior was a medical problem, considered to be associated with physical
inability to cope with situations. Now it is shifted to an educational perspective. So we, as educationists,
need to look at challenging behavior as the scope of study for “Emotional Literacy”.
Today challenging behavior of children in a class room or home situation is called as “Emotional and
Behavioral Difficulties” (EBD). This is a very common terminology in the western countries. Children who
have emotional disturbances create a barricade between themselves, and their learning environment through
inappropriate, aggressive, bizarre behavior and get withdrawn themselves from the outer world. A certain
science of behavior exists for human race and if it is not falling within its periphery we call it ‘intolerable
behavior’. Experience of violence, trauma, failure, rejection, losing self esteem mixed with unsettled
emotions –all these contribute to challenging behavior. Children experience a failure to establish a normal
behavior within and without. These become challenging behavior for all including the children and who deal
with children for the simple reason that the handling of such cases becomes very difficult and sometimes
impossible. Handling these challenging behaviors from an educational perspective is the need of the hour
because most of these cases are prevalent in schools. And Schools are the places where the children spend
most of their formative years. Knowledge about these challenging behaviors, the causes for such behaviors,
the various ways of handling these issues become the content matter for an ‘Emotional Literacy program’
Emotional literacy means our ability to read and understand our emotional states and most importantly
to pick up the multi dimensional skills and courage to act on them .Why do children fall a prey to all this
behavior? How do you identify such behavior? What are the characteristics of such children who have
challenging behaviors?

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How can a Class room change with Emotional Literacy program?
Emotional literacy programs should be replete with techniques that are embedded with:-
flexible teaching methodologies
A trained staff in emotional literacy, will help the children with development of social
competence and emotional maturity
help the children understand and adjust and respect the school’s expectations and routines
help in acquiring the skills of positive interaction with peers and adults
provision of class and school systems which control or censure negative or difficult behaviors
and encourage positive
Supporting School environment is an essential need for Emotional Literacy
How do you identify children with such emotional disorders?
What are the characteristics of children who have emotional disturbances? :
They will be lost, be unhappy, unwilling and/or unable to work
As they receive less praise for their work and have fewer positive child/adult interactions
They perform badly in tests and examinations and have very severe learning difficulties
have poor social skills and they would prefer to be alone
have low self-esteem
be emotionally volatile and may end up in outbursts
often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work or other
activities
often has difficult sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly –looks here and there
often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities and always their place is kept untidy
often avoids, dislikes or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as
schoolwork or homework)
often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g. toys, schoolwork, pencils, books)
is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli, is often forgetful in daily activities
often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
often leaves seat in classroom or and engages in somebody else’s work or goes around in the class
room
often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents this
may be subjective feelings of restlessness)
Do not think and speak-everything is instantaneous
often talks excessively
often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
Have very poor listening skills
often has difficulty waiting turn
often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g. butts into conversations or games)

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While the above behaviors are the symptoms to understand an emotionally disturbed behavior, there are
children who show aggressive oppositional defiance behavior also. They are always negativistic, defiant,
disobedient and show a hostile behavior toward authority They are characterized by :
losing one’s temper and shouting unnecessarily
arguing with adults even for small things
actively defying or refusing to comply with the request or rules of adults
deliberately doing things that will annoy others
blaming others for his or her own mistakes
being very sensitive to any comments or easily annoyed by others
being angry and resentful
They do not have straight eye contact, children of mood swings, temper, inappropriate physical
contact, attention seeking, restlessness, bullying, have poor communication skills
Dealing with such children is definitely a cumbersome task for both parents and children. Therefore
the Principals of Schools normally avoid admissions to them. This is running away from the reality and
can be described as escapism. The Principals and teachers of schools should try to get the parents on to
their side and remember that it is not a luxury, rather a need. It is not the job of a social worker or
psychologist to take care of the children; it is the job of the parents and teachers. This means a change in
basic attitude of schools taking that extra care to treating parents with particular care to raise their sense
of self-worth, gently creating shared expectations and making it worth their while to help manage their
disaffected, poorly-achieving children’ and ill behaved children
The most important need in an Emotional literacy program is that the children need to feel that they
are wanted and valued by at least some of the people like their teachers and other staff . the teachers can
engage these children in informal discussions whenever they get time and involve these children in small
activities that are noteworthy.
What are the characteristics of the teachers who are effective in the emotional literacy programs?
They will be:-
Have Good planning and they know very clearly what has to be done if there is an issue, well
organized; structured
Consistency; fairness - they are impartial
Good sense of humor and they do not show a morose face always
They are highly energetic and have Enthusiasm; interesting/challenging; passionate; stimulating
Understanding individual needs; understanding EBDs; knowledge of EBDs; pupil knowledge
Adaptability/flexibility and they are available to children
Empathy and Patience to listen to others
Give positive reinforcement; stress success; praise; encourage
They have Good subject knowledge and they go to class well prepared
Carefully differentiates work
Set clear boundaries but that are realizable
Work hard to develop a classroom environment that is caring, pleasant, relaxed, and friendly, yet
orderly and productive.
They are role models themselves and Model the behaviors they desire in their students
Involve the children in all classroom activities
Appreciate and respect diversity.
Avoid producing feelings of shame in children and avoid comparisons with their peer (focusing more
on pride and less on guilt).

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Have very good Communications with each child’s home.
Establish clear rules, beginning during the first few days of school,
Good practice, such as knowing the child and his family, hearing the pupil voice, working through close,
positive relationships, is of particular importance during transitions from one year group or stage to another.
Suggestions for the Emotional Literacy Program
Emotional literacy should be made as a subject in teacher training colleges and the teacher trainees need be
given good practical exposure. The teacher trainees can be given classic examples of emotionally disturbed
behavior of children and they should make case studies on this. These case studies suggest various ways and
means of how they handle the children and they should be available for teachers as a reference in schools.
This could be the link between schools and teacher training colleges.
The teacher trainees should also be given sessions by psychiatrist as to how to handle such children
The psychiatrists and psychologists of the city/district should make a pool service. Taking a turn,
they should organize programs for parents, children, and teachers
They should also start e-counseling programs for parents and teachers
There can be online discussion forums and you can call it “Emotions Go On line “(EGO) where any
interested parent or teacher can become a member free of charge. However the corporate sectors can
sponsor those online services.
The teachers should train the children to acknowledge their emotions and take ownership of this. The
problem is that many children do not know to identify the emotions. It is not very easy and it needs
immense training.
Teacher training colleges should make yoga and meditation a compulsory part of their curriculum.
This will bring a balance in the behavior of the teacher trainees also
A full course on culture and value systems should be incorporated in the teacher training curriculum.
This can be a part of the literacy program too. Not knowing one’s own culture also is a problem for
many children.
The schools can make or ruin a child. A partnership approach between home and school is the first and
only requirement of the emotional literacy program. The success of the EL program depends, then on the
leaders of the schools who make it happen. Teacher training colleges can give the necessary training to
teachers in order to make school life a memorable experience to children.
Dt 28th
July 2008