Emotional Honesty & Self-Acceptance

About the Book

“There is no excuse for not teaching preventive, healthy coping strategies to prepare kids for their teenage years.” -- Ronald R. Brill

In his innovative book, Emotional Honesty & Self-Acceptance, Ronald Brill, a former university professor and health educator, argues that youth can learn how to self-manage upsetting and stressful experiences. This work explains the relationship between recognizing and dealing with emotional pain, which is essential to avoid harmful behavior toward one’s self and others. Since the book was published in 2000 he continues to research and develop training programs for educators, including advising schools and student services professionals so they can more effectively help students learn and practice brain-based coping skills to reduce thigh risk emotional stress.

This book contains guiding principles used in classroom programs he introduced to over 700 4th to 6th grade elementary students from 2002 to 2008. His “virtual classroom” website, www.copingskills4kids.net, helps schools, parents and counselors guide children in the use of healthy and safe coping skills. The book and website are designed to enable recovery from everyday emotional pain caused by loss, rejection, betrayal and humiliation. He refers to these as “universal, core Emotionally Wounding Experiences.” Like physical wounds, emotional ones can also be “infected” if left unattended or ignored. His classroom programs prove that by age of nine, students can learn these lessons to begin preparing for the turbulent teenage years.

Violence prevention is an important benefit of developing emotional resilience and self-acceptance. The author’s commitment to brain-based coping skills learning is now shared by tens of thousands of individuals and institutions around the world seeking new ways to help youth avoid harming others for the emotionally wounds they may otherwise have not learned to heal.

The 300-page book uses analysis of school shooting incidents to advocate new strategies schools and parents can use to boost kids coping confidence needed to more easily get over inevitable emotionally painful and stressful experiences. It is written for mature teenagers and adults. This powerful tool provides evidence to those advocating coping skills education programs at home and school. This approach with today’s youth can make them more responsible and self-accepting persons. It also helps them develop new capabilities to deal with the emotional challenges and changes during adolescence.

Some Introductory Chapter Titles:

• What We Don’t Know About Hurt Feelings Can Kill Us!
• Seven Important Qualities of Feelings
• The American Way of Denying Hurt Feelings
• Our Vulnerable Sense of Self
• The Danger of Hiding Hurt Feelings
• Four Core Emotionally Wounding Experiences

About the Author

Ronald Brill, is a consultant, writer and speaker who has over 25-years experience in executive leadership positions for education and non-profit organizations. He has directed state-wide and international health education programs, and has taught college undergraduate and graduate courses for several San Francisco Bay Area universities. As a consultant, he offers workshops, training, strategic planning, and program development services. He is among the nation’s leading advocates for emotional education to prevent adolescent violence and self-destructive behavior. He also conducts policy research relating to health services and other public issues. He is a founding board member of the international Violence Prevention Forum, and as a consultant assists non-profit groups, schools and businesses to use emotional honesty programs for preventing destructive behavior. He is editor of the Emotional Education Perspective newsletter available through his web site: emotionalhonesty.com.