Unhealthy human behaviors relieved by higher emotional intelligence!
Here are some individual and societal pains that widespread EQ skills would mitigate.
Most aberrant child, teen and adult behavior can be traced back to low emotional intelligence – the lack of the skills to manage one’s own reactions and relationships with others in a healthy way.
Here are some of the behaviors that wreak havoc in our individual and community lives
✤ Violence: several million children annually are victims of domestic violence – on the rise even more now, police and social workers report. For years samples of U.S. children have found that around 60% are exposed to either violence, crime or abuse in either their homes, schools or communities . Almost 40% are direct victims of 2 or more violent acts, and 1 in 5 are victims of violence 5 or more times. Around 20% of students report bullying.
12 million domestic partners in U.S. annually experience violence – also now increasing. U.S.: highest murder and violent assault rates of all advanced countries.
✤ Sexual Abuse: 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys in U.S. sexually abused before age 18. 325,000 women raped a year. 1/6 of American women are raped in their lifetimes.. Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault of sexual abuse incident.
✤ Self-Harm: 1 in 4 teenage girls and 1 in 10 boys self-harm. 19% of overall 14-year-old girls and boys self-harm.
✤ Mental Health: 13. 1% of youths aged 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode in 2020. In 2021 11.5% of males and 29% of females reported same. Suicide was second leading cause of death for teens and grew dramatically between 2207 and 2023, Nearly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. – 43.8 million – experience mental illness in a given year. 1 in 6 Americans take psychiatric drugs, 80% of them long-term.
✤ Drug Usage: 58.2% of high school seniors say they drink, and 34.9% use marijuana. 23.5 million Americans are addicted to alcohol and drugs – or 1 in every 10 over the age of 12 . $800 plus billion spent annually in related costs due to crime, lost work productivity and health care.
✤ Workplace: 48% of American adults report abusive experiences at work. Billions lost to workplace stress, conflict and trauma. 51% if employees seeking other jobs. Only 27% say they are really engaged at work
✤ Global Survival: In the 80 years existence of nuclear weapons, there have been two killing bombs – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – four near accidental nuclear wars because machines misread machines, and two near deliberate nuclear wars – Cuba Missile Crisis and India-Pakistan.
*Statistics based on reports from the Center For Disease Control and the Departments of Health and Human Resources and Education.
The overall mental health of Americans leaves a lot to be desired.
Now in the lingering COVID era, American youth mental health is still suffering to painful degrees, exaggerated by income and screen addiction issues.
The Census Bureau reported last year that nearly 30% of Americans showed signs of clinical levels of depression or anxiety. 50% of youths reports themselves as “overstressed,” according to the Surgeon General.
Crime remain substantially higher and gun violence has increased, including mass shootings.
Years of studies show that most of the bleak statistics listed here – plus those of crime, divorce and business partnership feuds – will improve dramatically for the next generations if we start now to make EQ-raising effective personal life skills a priority in all our schools – whether called Social and Emotional Learning or well-being personal life skills. .
Doing so can also affect the wider population because comprehensive EQ programs at their smartest also engage parents and non-teaching staff, as well as students and teachers.
The sooner these EQ/SEL personal life skills are household terms and a societal goal, the faster adult training in these skills will be adopted by other major sectors and institutions.
Businesses are already moving in that direction. A huge amount of more growth is possible -and sorely needed.
How did we do this to ourselves?
How about a lack of emotional and social education and personal life skills?