People learn what they want to learn. If learning is forced on us, even if we master it temporarily, it is soon forgotten.

A little girl who finds a puzzle frustrating might ask her busy mother (or teacher) for help. The child gets one message if her mother expresses clear pleasure at the request and quite another if mommy responds with a curt 'Don't bother me - I've got important work to do.'

Empathic, emotionally intelligent work environments have a good track record of increasing creativity, improving problem solving and raising productivity.

Our brain comes hard-wired with an urge to play, one that hurls us into sociability. A child's play both demands and creates its own safe space, one in which she can confront threats, fears, and dangers, but always come through whole. Play offers a child a natural way to manage feared separations or abandonment, rendering them instead opportunities for mastery and self-discovery.

But the rational mind usually doesn't decide what emotions we "should" have !

What really matters for success, character, happiness and life long achievements is a definite set of emotional skills - your EQ - not just purely cognitive abilities that are measured by conventional IQ tests.

People tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature.