emotional intelligence

All parents want their kid to be smart. But without the ability to communicate through the spoken word, intelligence is difficult to measure at this age. I am still anxiously awaiting Eddie's command of the English language to surface, and often struggle with whether I should have him checked out by a speech therapist to determine if there is a genuine problem (more on this in forthcoming posts, I presume). But I recognize that there is more to intelligence than the ability to speak, and even more beyond the typical definition of intellectual abilities. I think Eddie has a high emotional intelligence, which is often associated with one's social abilities. We started our new session of music class today; we have been attending a Music Together class since January and today started the new Spring session which meant that some of the participants were new and some weren't. Eddie recognized and approached all of the kids that had been in the class before. He went up to all of them at various moments in the class and shared his instruments or props with them and engaged in a toddler-like conversation, which involved the unspoken word. He didn't go up to any of the new kids. I thought this was pretty neat - that he recognizes familiar people and acknowledges that they are his "friends," and thus engages with them socially. Our babysitter, a nice woman named Sandra who watches Eddie occasionally, recently commented on his social skills after taking him to the park. She said, "you have a sweetie," and that it is so interesting to watch him play with and observe the other kids. I take this as a major compliment because I know that Sandra watches a lot of different kids and she probably sees a lot of different behaviors. People always comment on how smiley Eddie is; he always greets people with a smile, which is a great characteristic for a young kid to have, I think...but he is not naive in his social cues; he recognizes when someone is a stranger and waits to see what our response is, and then, and only then after we have conversed with this person in an upbeat manner, will he done his contagious smile.