Perfect Popcorn for Q’s Race to the Top Game Night

This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaing with Pollinate Media Group and EQtainment, but all opinions are my own. #pmedia #Qsracetothetop #ad https://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

This is called Perfect Popcorn for a reason… It is perfect for family game night. It tastes great, is a fun treat, but won’t get the kids sticky, which saves the game from being ruined.

And with the perfect popcorn you need the perfect game. And I am so excited to share it with you! It is called Q’s Race To The Top. It is a board game that comes with a book you read first and action cards. It is about a little monkey that is smart but makes a lot of mistakes, doesn’t like to share, and is sometimes selfish, or thinks about himself and forgets to think of others. Sound familiar? As a parent the story really resonated with me, as I saw many similarities between Q’s behavior and my kiddos. And that is the point, this game is designed to teach kids emotional intelligence, something I am a firm believer everyone should learn.

It teaches emotional quotient (EQ) in a fun, non-threatening way that really works. I only wish I had it sooner.

As a parent it is hard to admit our failures sometimes, and one of the things I have had the hardest time with is my son’s behavior. A couple of years ago my oldest son started having minor problems in school. Behavioral problems. He would overreact, think everything was unfair, and not understand why his teacher, classmates, etc. responded the way they did to him. Once after getting a bad mark on a quiz he pushed his desk over. It was not good. I never expected my kids to be perfect little angels, but after a few too many calls from the teacher or principal, and well…I was at my wits end.

Long story short, it got a little out of hand. He is a really good kid. but his teacher was worried he was ostracizing himself socially and impairing his ability to learn in the classroom. After trying a number of different classroom approaches without success, we ended up seeking professional help. We got him a behavioral therapist. He is a very smart kid by way of traditional intelligence, but his EQ was not on par with his IQ. EQ is an important skill outside of your child’s IQ and academic education.  It includes things like self control, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

What it boiled down to for us was my son lacked empathy, and did not have the filter, red flag, logic most people have emotionally. And so things felt like great injustices, and he could only see one side of a situation…his!

This was really hard on all of us, but we did not want him labeled as the “bad” kid or the “problem” kid in the classroom, so for about 8 months he had weekly therapy to develop emotional intelligence. He learned coping skills for his emotions, and proper responses to difficult situations. I had to learn that just like I could not expect him to understand complex math because he had not yet learned it, I couldn’t expect certain responses/behaviors as he had not yet learned the emotional skills to handle certain feelings.

At the time I felt so helpless and clueless as to what to do. I would have loved having a game to help teach EQ, as beyond the therapist there were very few resources to turn to. We still work on this daily in our family with all 4 of our children, so when I saw this game, I had to have it. I knew it would make teaching EQ so much easier, and I was right!

If you think you would benefit from it too, you can check out the Kickstarter Campaign for it by clicking here.

Q’s Race To The Top is developed by EQtainment, a company that helps kids to practice emotional intelligence in a fun, no pressure, way that is both affordable and easy for parents.They have books, videos, and games. This game has a cute book you read about the monkey Q, and then a game board you play by rolling dice, and working your way through cards. The game offers 3 types of cards: Do, You, and Q. There are things the kids have to do, questions about themselves, and questions about Q. And they all help with EQ. It is really fun!

I can’t stress how important learning EQ really is. Studies have shown that having a high emotional quotient boosts career success, relationship satisfaction, leadership skills, health, humor, and happiness. All things I desperately want for my children. How about you?

As my son’s EQ has grown, the behavioral problems have started to subside. But we aren’t where we need to be yet. I wanted to share my story of struggling with a son with lower EQ, so other struggling parents will know there are things they can do, and maybe even help them find some help using this game.

We have loved it. It was fun to get to try this game before it even came out. We played it the first day we got it, and my kids have wanted to play it nearly every day since. The kids especially loved the “Do” section which includes things like standing on one leg. Hopping, etc. And I loved the “Q” section, which felt all too familiar with questions like… “Sometimes Q feels angry and hurt when people tease him for having a tail and big ears. Have you ever been teased? How did that make you feel?”

This great company is doing a Kickstarter campaign to help launch this amazing game. The Kickstarter started August 12th, so I encourage you to go support them, check it out, and get one of these great games for yourself. You won’t regret it. Find the campaign here.

And once you have it,  make the Perfect Popcorn and you will be all set for a fun family game night.

Perfect Popcorn

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Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 cup popcorn kernels air popped

Caramel

• 1 cube 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp butter flavoring optional
• 1/2 tsp coconut extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 Tbs molasses
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Instructions

• Pop the popcorn kernels with an air popper
• In a a heavy saucepan, turn heat to medium-high
• Melt butter in saucepan and stir sugar in
• Add light corn syrup, salt, vanilla, butter and coconut flavoring, cinnamon, and molasses
• Stir continuously until sugar melts completely
• Stir in baking soda
• Pour over the popped corn
• Preheat oven to 250
• Spray a cookie sheet with cooking oil and spread coated popcorn over the sheet in as close to a single layer as possible
• Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes
• Let cool and enjoy

Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.

Tried this recipe?Mention @ezpzmealz or tag #ezpzmealz!

Enjoy!

To learn more about this fun and educational game and the company behind it you can watch this video: