For immediate release

Please contact:
Sophie DuFault
BabyEQ Company, LLC
(610) 880-6960
sophie@babyeq.com

BOOST the EQ-- BOOST the IQ!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – June 3, 2005 - It's all about "educating the heart" -- teaching children to understand and manage their feelings in order to provide them a firm foundation on which to build their emotional quotient, or EQ, along with their IQ.

Plato summarized it as "All learning has an emotional base." And based on those premises, The Baby EQ Company LLC has introduced the concept of fostering emotional intelligence in children (beginning as young as 6 months of age) as it sets about teaching parents and children alike through a new and captivating video with an array of toys, music, puppetry, and mime.

In her career as a Marriage, Family, and Child Therapist, Christine Zernzach, founder of BabyEQ, met with the children who had been sent to her for counseling--sometimes by distraught and pleading parents, sometimes court-ordered by a concerned judge. Always, these children seemed to find serious trouble, and always, Ms Zernzach noted, there seemed to be a common thread among them. They were emotionally immature...they did not know how to properly express or manage their feelings.

As she became a new mother, Ms Zernzach became frustrated in her attempt to locate fun and stimulating materials to assist in teaching these concepts of emotional intelligence to her daughter. It seemed the entire educational toy industry was all about “ABC” and “123” type products all in efforts to boost the IQ and school readiness. What about EQ? Ms Zernzach was aware on a very personal level of the necessity for children to obtain the abilities to recognize, label, and regulate their emotions—the essence of EQ. However, what about the relationship of EQ to IQ? According to Ms Zernzach, “Children with highly developed EQ’s are in the best position to meet the potential promise of their IQ’s. Additionally, a well developed EQ contributes to lasting personal happiness through the knowledge of self and successful interpersonal relationships in ways a high IQ score and ‘straight A’s’ just can’t.”

It soon became apparent that what she had been searching for was not to be found and if she were to have the desired curriculum, it would be necessary to take creative matters into her own hands. As the concept grew, Ms Zernzach enlisted the support of her husband, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician, a friend, Sophie Dufault, a Montreal-native and therapist, and a few talented family members including her beloved and EQ-savvy mother of 14 children.

Ms Zernzach created a visually and musically captivating cast of six characters called the "MonkEQs" each representing one of six primary emotions. These emotional characters have rapidly risen to stardom as the host puppets (only to be surpassed by their future careers as soft plush toys) of the first installment in the “Grow With Me” video series, Baby Feelings. The newly released Baby Feelings video sets out to teach emotion recognition through a patented method of combining visual emotional stimuli with classical music selections shown in research to carry a particular emotional content. This creates a synergy in the learning process unsurpassed by any early childhood video in the industry.

Certainly our society is ready for BabyEQ. Never has there been a greater need to help our children understand themselves and their powerful feelings. We live in a society that bombards us constantly with media designed to elicit strong emotions, most of it negative. We live in a society were tempers are short, forgiveness rare, violence commonplace, and fears easily overwhelm. It really is time to set priorities straight and focus early childhood parenting around the topic of emotional learning and nurturance. It’s very clear that the much desired “ABC-123’s” will come more effectively and meet a child’s natural potential (IQ) when a well developed emotional intelligence (EQ) is present.

Baby Feelings will be available for purchase ($19.95) 1 July 2005 through the company website www.BabyEq.com.