I hadn't heard the term until about a month ago when I attended a day long professional continuing educational seminar.
One of the hour long presentations was on emotional intelligence which started with a test to rate ourselves. I scored very high when the emotional intelligence involved young children and very low when it involved mid teens to adults.
The instructor wasn't really happy when I described it as "the ability to dwell in nambly pambly land." But that seemed what it was like to me.
While, I can be very sympathetic/emphatic to young children (maybe because I am a grandfather), by the time you grow up, I tend to think society would be better off teaching courses in how not to get your feelings hurt so easily rather than making the rest of society walk on eggshells around you. Call it "insensitivity training" if you like.
I suppose that makes me some sort of an anachronism or a throwback. Has anyone else run into this?
Yeah, I think real emotional intelligence is the ability to train your emotions so you don't fall apart when somebody doesn't give you what you want either by retreating to a safe space to cry or, worse, wanting to shoot up a school or other soft target.
What you are observing is the wisdom of experience (from age) viewing the lack of it from the youth.
I keep telling my kids (and anyone else I can get to listen) that you really son’t understand ‘experience’ until you get some.
Just like you can never understand what it’s like to have children, until you have some.
Some things you can’t learn except through experience, and the wisest people learn quickly how to get experience through interactions with people who have experience.