Goleman discusses the alarming consequences of emotional illiteracy and emphasizes a need for lessons in handling emotions and resolving conflicts peacefully. He presents a harrowing real-life incident involving a school shooting, illustrating the consequences of emotional deficiencies among teenagers. Goleman highlights the deficiency of emotional literacy in standard school curricula and suggests that the focus on academic standards often overlooks crucial emotional skills needed for survival.

The author presents distressing statistics from the 1990s in the United States, which indicate a rise in juvenile arrests for violent crimes, increased teen murder rates, and escalating rates of teenage pregnancy, venereal diseases, and mental health conditions. Goleman particularly underscores the bleak situation for African American youth, with rates much higher than those for white youth. He connects these trends to emotional malaise and deficits in emotional competences and asserts that the erosion of emotional skills is a universal challenge for modern children. Goleman discusses a national sample of American children’s emotional conditions in the mid-1970s and late 1980s, revealing a steady worsening based on parents’ and teachers’ assessments. Emotional problems such as withdrawal, anxiety, attention issues, and delinquency became more prevalent.

The chapter stresses the global nature of emotional deficiencies in children and attributes the problem to the pressures of modern life, including financially besieged families and the erosion of nurturing exchanges between parents and children.