Emotional intelligence has been associated not only with young people’s academic achievement but also with their ability to deal with harmful emotional states such as anxiety and stress. Limited research, however, has focused on influences of the emotional atmosphere on young people’s application of their emotional intelligence. This article seeks to provoke debates about the role played by accidental lessons arising from learning institutions emotional atmosphere on young people’s ability to apply their emotional intelligence in the fight against life crises such as COVID-19. The target population was 617 young people, aged 15–35 years, and the researcher used Yamane’s sample calculation formula in determining the sample size, which was 243. The researcher used two main data collection tools: a closed-ended questionnaire with 14 items and an interview guide with 10 open-ended questions. The validity of the 14-item questionnaire was determined by experts, whereas its reliability was determined using Cronbach α, which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.91. The clarity of the interview guide items was determined by two research experts. The results of both quantitative and qualitative indicated that conducive emotional atmospheres increase people’s mastery of their feelings as well as spur one’s capacity to endure discomforts associated with crises. The implication here is that we ignore the power welded by accidental lessons arising from emotional atmosphere at our peril.

This article sought to determine the role played by the invisible curriculum on young people’s view of self-including their self-identity and self-esteem. This comes against a backdrop of accusations and counter accusations regarding, on whose doorstep should the blame on young people’s vulnerability to risk behavior should be placed on, yet limited research, especially in Kenya, has given due consideration to the invisible curriculum. The invisible curriculum accounts for more than 90% of all Students’ learning experiences including their self-conception or self-identity formation and people tend to behave in ways coherent with the view they have about themselves (self-identity). To fill this gap, a sequential explanatory research design was employed to answer one main questions: what role does accidental lessons arising from learning institutions’ social atmosphere play in young peoples’ self-identity and self-esteem development? The target population was 1,246 and Yamane’s sample size calculation formular was used to determine the sample size which was 486. Stratified random sampling was used in selecting the respondents. A self-report questionnaire with 60-closed ended questions and an interview guide with 14 open-ended questions were used in data collection. The results confirmed that accidental lessons arising from invisible curriculum elements shape young people’s self-concept or self-identity and self-esteem.