As parents, we want our children to grow up happy, healthy and resilient. We want them to be able to cope with life's challenges and express their feelings in appropriate ways. But how do we help them achieve this? Gottman's emotion coaching is a great way to support your parenting and your child's emotional development. It is an evidenced-based parenting technique developed by Dr. John Gottman and his colleagues.
Emotion coaching is based on the idea that emotions are valuable sources of information and opportunities for learning. Emotion coaching helps parents to recognize, validate and respond to their child's emotions in a supportive way. It also helps parents to teach their child how to regulate their emotions and problem-solve when they face difficulties.
According to Gottman, there are five steps to emotion coaching:
1. Be aware of your child's emotions. Pay attention to their verbal and non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and behavior. Try to understand what triggers their emotions and how they react to them.
2. Recognize your child's emotions as an opportunity for connection and teaching. Don't dismiss, ignore or criticize your child's emotions. Instead, see them as a chance to build trust and empathy with your child and help them learn about themselves and the world.
3. Validate your child's emotions. Show your child that you accept and respect their feelings, even if you don't agree with them or like them. You can do this by naming their emotions, reflecting their feelings back to them and empathizing with their perspective.
4. Help your child label their emotions. Help your child find the right words to describe what they are feeling. This can help them communicate better, understand their emotions better and regulate them more effectively.
5. Help your child problem-solve. Once your child has calmed down, you can help them find constructive ways to deal with the situation that caused their emotions. You can do this by asking open-ended questions, brainstorming solutions, offering guidance and supporting their choices.
Emotion coaching is not always easy or natural for parents. It takes practice, patience and flexibility. But the benefits are worth it. Research has shown that emotion coaching can improve your child's emotional intelligence, self-esteem, academic performance, social skills and mental health.
If you want to learn more about emotion coaching and how to apply it in your daily parenting, you can check out Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by Gottman & Declaire or visit Gottman's website: www.gottman.com. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child was published in 1998 and, while the techniques are still useful, the book itself can be a bit dated. Gottman presents updated, more inclusive, research on his website.