Today, I was given a great dose of parental learning on Emotional Intelligence. While walking our son Perrin to school through the glorious aftermath of Portland’s Snowmageddon ’17, we committed the very grave sin of arriving late. When we were greeted at the door, a woman handed a large red slip to Perrin and said “hand this late slip to your teacher”. The mood instantly changed for both of us. Perrin, suddenly confronted with something he perceived to be very wrong, started lagging further and further behind. As we approached his classroom door, right at the edge of the doorway, he stopped completely and curled up into a ball, unable to proceed further. I tried very hard to ignore this behavior as if it would go away, asking in my best tone of confusion “What’s wrong?”, knowing exactly what the answer would be. All he could do was cry, and shake his head, knowing that once he passed that doorway, he would have to hand that horrible red slip to his teacher. If you are like me, often the response to a difficult situation like this is “Don’t worry, you’re ok.”