Emotional maturity and Intellectual maturity

1. Emotional Maturity
The expression, "maturity," refers to a significant phase in the growth of a living
organism. Maturity is achieved when individual growth is completed and the organism is ripe
for propagation. The concept of maturity is used also in psychology and psychiatry. In this
field it designates that phase of personality development which corresponds to biological and
psychological maturation. We call a person psychologically mature after he has reached a
certain level of intelligence and emotional outlook. 3 Emotional intelligence (EI) has been
defined as ‘Being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control
impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping
the ability to think; to empathize and to hope’4

2. Characteristics of Emotional Maturity5

4. 1. The Ability to Give and Receive Love
Emotional maturity fosters a sense of security which permits vulnerability. A mature person
can show his vulnerability by expressing love and accepting expressions of love from those
who love him. An immature person is unduly concerned with signs of "weakness" and has
difficulty showing and accepting love. The egocentricity of immaturity will allow the
acceptance of love, but fails to recognize the needs of others to receive love. They'll take it,
but they won't give it.

4. 2. The Ability to Face Reality and Deal with it

The immature avoid facing reality. Overdue bills, interpersonal problems, indeed any
difficulties which demand character and integrity are avoided and even denied by the
immature. Mature people eagerly face reality knowing the quickest way to solve a problem is
to deal with it promptly. A person's level of maturity can be directly related to the degree to
which they face their problems, or avoid their problems. Mature people confront their
problems, immature people avoid their problems.

4. 3. Just as Interested in Giving as Receiving

A mature person's sense of personal security permits him to consider the needs of
others and give from his personal resources, whether money, time, or effort, to enhance the
quality of life of those he loves. They are also able to allow others to give to them. Balance
and maturity go hand in hand. Immaturity is indicated by being willing to give, but unwilling
to receive; or willing to receive, but unwilling to give.

4. 4. The Capacity to Relate Positively to Life Experiences

A mature person views life experiences as learning experiences and when they are
positive he enjoys and revels in life. When they are negative he accepts personal
responsibility and is confident he can learn from them to improve his life. When things do not
go well he looks for an opportunity to succeed. The immature person curses the rain while a
mature person sells umbrellas.

4. 5. The Ability to Learn from Experience

The ability to face reality and to relate positively to life experiences derive from the
ability to learn from experience. Immature people do not learn from experience, whether the
experience is positive or negative. They act as if there is no relationship between how they act
and the consequences that occur to them. They view good or bad experiences as being caused
by luck, or fate. They do not accept personal responsibility.

4. 6. The Ability to Accept Frustration

When things don't go as anticipated the immature person stamps his feet, holds his
breath, and bemoans his fate. The mature person considers using another approach or going
another direction and moves on with his life.
5. Lack of Emotional Maturity
5. 1. Symptoms6
5. 1. 1. Volatile Emotions
Emotional volatility is indicated by such things as explosive behavior, temper
tantrums, low frustration tolerance, responses out of proportion to cause, oversensitivity,
inability to take criticism, unreasonable jealousy, unwillingness to forgive, and a capricious
fluctuation of moods.

5. 1. 2. Over-Dependence
Healthy human development proceeds from dependence (I need you), to independence (I
don't need anyone), to interdependence (we need each other). Over-dependence is indicated
by;

 Inappropriate dependence, e.g. relying on someone when it is preferable to be self-

reliant, and
 Too great a degree of dependence for too long. This includes being too easily
influenced, indecisive, and prone to snap judgments. Overly-dependent people fear
 change preferring accustomed situations and behavior to the uncertainty of change
and the challenge of adjustment. Extreme conservatism may even be a symptom.

5. 1. 3. Stimulation Hunger
This includes demanding immediate attention or gratification and being unable to wait
for anything. Stimulation hungry people are incapable of deferred gratification, which means
putting off present desires in order to gain a future reward. Stimulation hungry people are
superficial and live thoughtlessly and impulsively. Their personal loyalty lasts only as long as
the usefulness of the relationship. They have superficial values and are too concerned with
trivia (their appearance, etc.). Their social and financial lives are chaotic.

5. 1. 4. Egocentricity
Egocentricity is self-centeredness. Its major manifestation is selfishness. It is
associated with low self-esteem. Self-centered people have no regard for others, but they also
have only slight regard for themselves. An egocentric person is preoccupied with his own
feelings and symptoms. He demands constant attention and insists on self-gratifying
sympathy, fishes for compliments, and makes unreasonable demands. He is typically
overly-competitive, a poor

6
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 2006), 128-149.
loser, perfectionistic, and refuses to play or work if he can't have his own way. A self-centered
person does not see himself realistically, does not take responsibility for his own mistakes or
deficiencies, is unable to constructively criticize himself, and is insensitive to the feelings of
others. Only emotionally mature people can experience true empathy, and empathy is a prime
requirement for successful relationships. Emotionally mature people do not lie in
uncomfortable situations. Rather, they face the reality of them head-on. In a disagreement,
they don’t resort to personal attacks; they address the issue being discussed. They are not
impulsive and they don’t speak recklessly. They make sure they are calm and think before
they speak.

5. Emotional Maturity: Implications for Pastoral Ministry

Human emotions play important roles in our lives. This is natural and may be quite
wholesome. But we all realize that sometimes emotions cloud people's thinking, so they do
things they should not.
Dale Wolyniak writes in one of the journals – today the role of pastor is truly under
pressure from many sides, probably more than at any time of history. The stress that
accompanies a ministry calling can have substantial negative effects on those in this caring
profession.
Emotions can be confusing, uncertain, and even dangerous. Thus it becomes very
important for a pastor to be emotionally mature. For pastors of troubled churches, ministry
cannot be viewed as “business as usual.” One cannot relate to troubled people as fully
rational beings, capable of making and keeping bona fide agreements. And troubled church
systems cannot be led as if they were healthy systems. If they are so treated, they will only
become less healthy, and the pastoral leader will ultimately be caught by painful surprise and
sadly fail in his heavenly calling.11
Pastors of churches under stress must think of themselves as specialists. They must
care for people according to the needs of their people, and not merely conduct “church as
usual.” There must be a certain type of good, strong, focused preaching, honest worship,
sincere praying, and genuine comfort, but the counseling program and administrative style
must change drastically.

Counseling for disordered and under-developed types of people must take place
within the context of a deep pastoral understanding of the type of underdevelopment
manifested, and also within the context of appropriate biblical mandates. In such cases, the
pastor must truly “speak for God,” without usurping his (or her) authority over the lives of
people. If possible, people must be gently urged to grow in Christ, without commanding them
so strongly that they regress instead. The administrative leadership style of a pastor in a
troubled church must be that of a loving but firm parent who presents clear outer boundaries
to the children, while allowing them to develop slowly within the parameters of their own
ability to grow. Disordered people can serve God, even if they can’t get along very well with
each other or even with the pastor. But in such cases the pastor must be more than just a
pastor; he must be skilled in the taming of hearts. It is true that only God can ultimately tame
the heart, but it is also true that God desires to use sensitive, skilled human agents in that
effort.
Many sincere followers of Christ, followers who are really passionate for God, join a
church, participate weekly in a small group, serve with their gifts, and who are considered
“mature,” remain stuck at a level of spiritual immaturity—especially when faced with
interpersonal conflicts and crises.
Emotional health and spiritual maturity cannot be separated. It is impossible to be
spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.
When we ignore the emotional component of our lives, we move through the motions
 of Christian disciplines, activities, and behaviors, but deeply rooted behavioral patterns from
our pasts continue to hinder us from an authentic life of maturity in Christ.
We often neglect to reflect on what is going on inside us and around us (emotional
health) and are too busy to slow down to be with God (contemplative spirituality).

6. Conclusion
Emotional Maturity is not only the effective determinant of personality pattern, but
also helps to control the growth of individual development. All emotionally matured people
will be in a position to face the challenges of life which will reflect the fruits of normal
emotional development. It is a stage of vital importance in human life and hence major aim of
any good educational programme will help the learner to gain emotional maturity. Emotional
maturity at all levels will help a person to lead a healthy life.

3. Intellectual Immaturity

Cognitive Development of Intellectual Method - Jean Piagets

Jean Piagets was born in 1896, a Swiss Psychologists who developed the Cognitive
Development Theory of human thought and knowledge from birth through adolescence. He
completes his PhD from the University of Neuchatel at the age of 21 and involve in several
European Clinics and Laboratories. Later, he went to the University of Geneva and was
associated with the J.J. Rousseau Institute. In 1949, he became the Director of Geneva’s
Psychology Laboratory and later founded the International Centre of Genetic Epistemology in
1955 in Geneva.
His Method
Piagets method is to observe a child behavior in order to acquire how a child understood and
also modified abstract ideas. So, he brought up with an idea of ‘cognitive development’ in
which he distinguished four stages of mental groth development of a child.

1. The Sensori-motor stage

Reasoning is largely dependent on perception. Babies senses help them understand and
experiment with their environment, and they use their eyes, mouths, and hands to learn more
about objects. Simple learning occurs but the child does not think at this stage. It is a stage
where children cannot think beyond their own view. The infant knows the world through their
movements and sensations
Children learn about the world through basic actions such as sucking, grasping, looking, and
listening
Children not only learn how to perform physical actions such as crawling and walking; they
also learn a great deal about language from the people with whom they interact.

2. The Pre-operational stage

At these stage, although the thinking capacity of children is still unsystematic, fragmented, and
inconsistent, the capacity to form and use mental symbols including verbal symbols of language
is the major characteristic during this period. Children can mentally represent objects and
events without needing to use senses like touching, hearing, or seeing. For example, in this
stage children might pretend a block is a phone, and interact with it the way they would with a
real phone.
Their thinking is very unsystematic. There imagination and fantasy plays an important role.
Thus fair tales and mythical stories are a delight to them because it does not require to think
logically but full of fantasy. They have no logical reason and have no limited thinking process.

Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.
Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and struggle to see things from the perspective of
others.

3. The Concrete Operation stages

At these stages, the child develops a sense of consistency in their observation of objects,
number, time and volume. They could able to apply Children can perform inductive reasoning
around concrete objects — that is, they can logically generalize from a specific experience. For
instance, if they sneeze a lot around their friend’s dog, they may conclude that they will be
allergic to other dogs as well. During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about
concrete events

During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other
people might think and feel. Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to understand that
their thoughts are unique to them and that not everyone else necessarily shares their thoughts,
feelings, and opinions. They not only reason but they talk the events like personal
experience..justify right and wrong. They can identifythe difference between fantasy and facts
but still carry on the imagination.

4. The Formal Operation stage

Teens and tweens start to be able to reason logically about abstract concepts like algebra, social
justice, or freedom. They may begin to think more critically about moral or ethical issues, such
as norms in an online community or principles regarding right or wrong. They no more
suroounded by fantasy and imagination. It is replaced by lofgical thinking. A person become
mature in thinking, resourcefull and contributes ideas and wisdoms. They are able to devise
their own solutions and answers to problems without needing firsthand experience.
Piaget theory to CRE is to guide the learners according to their stages of life. There are different
stages development which needs to be recognized or identified by the educators to help and
enable the learners to grow towards more understanding and maturity. His theory is to prepared
a stage wise curriculum for children so the learner can be taught according to the child ability.
One of the set-backs of CRE in India is that there are many children and youth who have the
cognitive ability to think great but our education system has failed their abilities. The learners
are not allowed to think creatively. The interaction between teachers and the learbers is lacking
in our education system.
Examples, Sunday school teachers narrate Bible stories to the learners ask them to memorize
the verse or a passage and at the conduct exam in order t check their capabilities. But such type
of teaching learning approach is too limited and narrow.
What we need is instead of memorization of the Bible verses, the learners must be encouraged
to think and reason creatively and critically on those verses and passage instead of asking only
factual question, we need to encourage to apply them to one’s own life situation. The goal is to
create men and women who are capable of doing new thing and not simply repeating what other
generation has done. To form the mind and not accept everything they are offered.

The emotionally mature life is one of faith in the God who redeems ourselves that we may use
them in loving service. It expresses faith in the God who is intensely interested in others and in
the life which is an expression of his plan. The mature Christian minister would be an imitator
of God by accepting himself, life, and others on the basis of having been accepted by God in
Christ. Emotional maturity is not a substitute but a necessary supplement to spiritual
maturity. ,A constantly increasing knowledge of God and a developing devotion to Christ must
be joined with emotional maturity if ministers are to be equal to the tremendous demands of
contemporary service in the church of Jesus Christ. Intellectual maturity is the maturity we gain
when we get older.