EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: CONDITION PRECEDENT TO PARENTING
‘Femi Adekunle on Parenting
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a big deal in life. However cognitively intelligent, clever, good-intentioned or generous a person is, the presence or absence of emotional intelligence will determine whether the person will succeed or fail as a parent.
It has been defined as the “capacity to keep one’s emotions under control while mindful of others”. It helps to positively define and manage inter-personal relationships.
Today a lot of employers conduct EI tests for applicants in the belief that an emotionally intelligent person will make a good leader, team player and co-worker. As husbands, wives, daddies and mummies, EI is indispensable to make your relationships work.
Recently I was told a very sad story that happened years back. A 12 year-old girl had gone out to play. She overstayed and came home late, beyond the time permitted by her parents. It was late in the evening and was already dark. In a fit of anger, her father charged at her and ordered her to return to where she was coming from (in the presence of her mother who acquiesced to the eviction). It was unlikely he didn’t really mean it, but the girl, mortified by fear, and knowing what her father was capable of doing while in that mood, quickly ran out of the house and went to hide in an uncompleted building in the neighbourhood. She was there overnight. No one knows why she didn’t return home or whether they indeed searched for her. By the following night while still in hiding, she was raped. It was not until months later that it was discovered that she’d been impregnated. According to the narrator of the story, the course of the poor girl’s life derailed thenceforth and it never remained the same till date. Such a sad story. It is possible that these parents regretted their action later, but the damage done to their daughter was permanent and irreversible.
I took time to ask again and again as I am sure you’re asking, whether they were her real or foster parents. They were indeed her real parents.
Children, including teenagers will always be what they are – children. There is a lot of damage that will be done when we take decisions in a fit of rage or even when we have not had time to think through our proposed actions. As parents, we are custodians of lives and not things, of living entities and not commodities.
As parents, we are custodians of lives and not things, of living entities and not commodities.
‘Femi Adekunle, a Parenting and Family Coach, writes from Abuja, Nigeria.
Email: femi383@gmail.com
WhatsApp: 08055103512
24th October, 2026
