Part Five: Chapter 15, The Cost of Emotional Illiteracy Summary and Analysis

Emotional illiteracy, is more than immaturity, it may account for the global statistics on teenagers suffering from: withdrawal and social problems, anxiety and depression, attention deficit and thinking problems, and delinquent and aggressive behavior. Family, the source of emotional learning, is fractured and economically stressed so that both parents work leaving the children to learn from strangers how to handle their emotions.

The emotional illiterates tend toward aggression. The boys become bullies; the girls become pregnant, and they will pass on to their children the same lack of emotional intelligence. Psychologist John Lochman, of Duke University, designed a program to retrain aggressive boys in anger management. The boys who graduated from the training became less disruptive in class, felt better about themselves and were less likely to...