Every Friday, like clockwork my daughters do what all kids seem wired to do at one point or another—they build forts. 

One day my girls made an elaborate fort with a cozy living room, sleeping chamber, and a fireplace. Their favorite feature was the closet with the coat hanger and the special dressing room next to it. 

Soon, it was time for the girls to change into their pajamas. My oldest was wise enough to preserve the fragile, blanketed masterpiece, so she went to her “real” bedroom to change. My youngest, on the other hand, wanted to change in the fort dressing room. Yet, because the fort was unstable, I had to tell her that she wasn’t allowed to change in it.

As you might imagine, she didn’t like this at all! She wept with frustration as she reluctantly came out of the fort. She probably thought “What’s the point of making a fort with a dressing room if I can’t even use it?” My guess, was that in her eyes, this was sheer injustice.

After I took a moment to empathize with her, I prayed for wisdom. Then I asked her these four questions:

“Can you share with me why you are upset?”

“What are your some words to describe how you’re feeling?”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“Do you think a fun activity would help, like drawing or writing?”

These four questions may seem basic for some parents to ask, but taking time to ask questions and suggest ways to help, are skills I’ve had to practice over and over again. I must choose to be consistent, deliberate and systematic and in time, it becomes easier to do. I’m motivated as I see growth and keep my goal in mind of building emotional intelligence in my children. I hope that you will be motivated as you see growth in your children as well.

So to conclude my Emotional Intelligent Parenting series, we’ll dive into the key to raising emotionally intelligent kids: learning the skills to becoming an Emotion Coach.

 

 

Emotion Coaching Skills

John Gottman, author of the book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child uses the term “Emotion Coach” to describe an emotionally intelligent parent. The book describes all the steps in detail. Following are Gottman’s five steps on becoming an emotion coach described with my own insight and understanding of each step.

As I take you through the steps, keep the word empathy in your mind. Empathy is the basis for emotion coaching. It is foundational for truly understanding someone’s perspective. I define empathy as trying to understand why someone thinks or behaves a certain way given their understanding of a situation. Simply put, empathy is an attempt to put self aside to truly understand another person’s point of view. Empathy is the core of being able to effectively bond with your child. Keep that in mind as you learn these steps.

Here we go.

Step 1: Be Aware of your Child’s Emotions

Being aware of your child’s emotions is the first step in becoming an effective emotion coach.  However, you as the parent must be aware of your own emotions first. Doing this makes you more prepared in dealing with your child’s feelings. And whether you are aware of it or not, you model to your child how to handle frustrating emotions. I’d love to unpack this idea more in a different post. For now, here’s what you can do to assist your child:

• Pay attention to what’s going in their life. This gives you clues about “the why” of their unusual behavior. Has there been a new move, new sibling, parental conflict, parental addictions, or unresolved trauma from the past?
• Pay attention to the way they play. For example, if little Darla has been aggressive with her dolls after lunchtime each day, you’d want to take note of that.
• Look at the world from their perspective.  Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand why they may feel a certain way. Doing this fosters empathy and it will help, as you get ready for the next step.

Step 2: Look at Emotions as an Opportunity to Bond and Teach

So, you’ve started practicing and are becoming aware of your child’s emotions. Now what? The next step simply requires you to shift your mindset. You don’t need to “do” anything yet, except choose to look at things from a different angle. You do this by choosing to look at each emotionally charged moment as an opportunity to bond or teach instead of seeing it as a negative experience. It takes empathy to be able to view things from the perspective of connection.

One major barrier to making this cognitive shift is feeling like you don’t have the emotional energy to handle your child’s emotions. It is said that it is hard to “give from an empty cup”. In this case it’s vital that you are intentional about finding ways to recharge. This allows you to be “present” with your child. A little positive self-talk can be just what you need to make that shift in thinking.

Here’s what you can practice saying to yourself:

• I was feeling (irritated, annoyed, frustrated, angry) at first, but I choose to use this is an opportunity to bond with (child’s name).
• “I can learn to use this situation to teach a valuable lesson.”
• “It’s difficult, but I am capable of helping my child with their upset feelings.”
• “Even though it is annoying, their feelings will pass and we’ll get through this.”
• “I’m helping them to practice skills that will benefit them for future relationships.”
• “I can teach my child valuable lessons as I take time to be present with them.”

Choosing to retrain your brain to see those triggers as an opportunity as opposed to a nuisance can transform the way you interact with your child. You’ll be building the necessary skills in becoming the emotion coach your child needs. One important note though–you obviously want to be authentic about diving in to this approach. Be completely honest with yourself about whether you are really up for trying this out. A child can tell if you are being genuine. If you just can’t do it, it’s perfectly okay to try another time.

Step 3: Listen with Empathy, Validate with Patience

After you’ve shifted your mindset by looking at your child’s emotions as a way to bond, try practicing empathetic listening and validation. Gottman considers this step the most important because it builds TRUST, which is vital for fostering healthy relationships.

Listening. Empathic listening is when you use your senses to tune in to your child and then reflect what you’ve heard back to them. It’s not a time to give advice or share your evaluation of what they’re going through. There will be time for that. It’s a time to simply be present and hear what they’re saying from the heart.

Validating. Part of empathic listening is seeking to understand. It’s human nature to want to feel understood and heard. Gottman emphasized a very important aspect about empathic listening that I’ve found to be true from personal experience. When a person feels understood, they are more likely to take your advice.  Think about this. When you share your thoughts with a friend and they interrupt to give you advice about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to freely express yourself without getting immediate feedback until you’ve shared your heart? You can’t truly counsel and coach when you haven’t heard the matter fully.

A major barrier to doing this, is your own impatience and annoyance at outward expression of feelings. This is huge.  Every person is different and for many, the outward expression of emotion can be a distressing experience. In this case, it’s important to look for an outlet to process your own feelings through prayer, journaling, or talking to someone.

Gottman suggests some basic skills in active listening, but here are some of my suggestions of what you can practice:

• Be present. Keep your mind, eyes, and heart focused on your child
• Imagine the times where you were a kid and no one listened to you. Be the person you would’ve wanted to hear you out as a kid.
• Recognize that validating someone’s feelings is not agreeing with them. It is simply just letting the child know that it is understandable why they may feel a certain way.
• Fight the urge to get caught up in your own feelings of distress. If listening is too irritating and you feel you might explode, take a break and listen when you’re calm.

This all takes practice. One big part of being patient with your child is to also be patient with yourself in the process. Perhaps you may need to find someone who can listen to you when you go through something. Remember, that empathetic listening can open up a door to building trust. It feels horrible to stifle your feelings and not deal with them. Learning how to listen in a healthy way can encourage your child to share feelings so they can build satisfying relationships.

Step 4: Label the Emotion

So you’ve taken the time to empathically listen to your child as they talk to you about what’s bothering them. In that process of listening, you can gently ease into helping them name their emotion.

This is a straightforward process. Your role is to guide them in identifying what they’re feeling and to say it out loud. Research has shown that simply naming the emotion reduces the intensity of the feeling. When you reduce the intensity, you have clearer headspace to actually start problem solving.

Part of naming the emotion is to know the vocabulary for different feelings. If a child doesn’t know the names of emotions, he won’t be able to clearly identify what he’s feeling. It reminds me of how deaf and blind Helen Keller had that amazing “aha” moment when she first learned the word for “water”. She had a name to attach to her experience. It was then that her world was full of real meaning and not just a bunch of random experiences.  This revolutionized her way of seeing the world. And it can do the same for your child as well. 

Here’s how you can practice:

“What do you think you need right now?’

“What is it you think you’re feeling?”

“Do you think you may be feeling (_________)?”

“It sounds like you may be feeling (_____________).”

“What’s going on in your heart right now?”

Next time you are in a situation where you are feeling out of sorts, try to name your emotion so that when you try to help your child name theirs you can empathize with what they are going through.

Step 5: Set Clear Limits.

After all of the pre-work you’ve done, your child is probably calmer and more receptive. At this point it’s much easier to set clear limits and problem solve. Gottman broke this down into five parts: set the limit, identify the goal, think of possible solutions, evaluate solution based on family values, and help them come up with a solution. These five parts simply describe a natural way of problem solving.  The following scenario brings all the previous steps together, with examples of how to implement Step #5.

Scenario: Your 14-year-old son, John has been walking around the house morose and speaking critically of everyone. You silently acknowledge that it irritates you. But instead of aggressively confronting him about his annoying behavior, you choose to look at this as an opportunity to bond. You say to yourself “I’m annoyed, but maybe there is a teaching moment in this.” You casually start a conversation with him.  While listening empathically, he tells you that he games for long hours and loathes that he doesn’t have any friends to hang out with in person. He just doesn’t feel like his life has any meaning.  After talking it out, he’s able to name his feelings of being bored, frustrated, and angry.

Because you’ve listened to him so well, he can see that you sincerely care and he’s likely to receive your counsel in good spirit. So here’s how you could implement Step #5 and what it may sound like.

• Set the limit– “John, I understand that you are feeling this way, but it’s not ok to speak rudely or be overly critical towards your family. I love you and want us to all treat each other respectfully.” He says that he understands and will try to do better.

• Identify the goal–“So, John what do you want to see happen?” Soon, you find out that he just wants to fill his time with meaningful activities.

• Think of possible solutions– “How about we brainstorm some ideas of things you could do to feel like life is meaningful?”

• Evaluate proposed solution based on family values– “Those are great ideas. As I’ve shared in the past son, it is important to keep your eyes on your goals.” 

• Make a choice of the solution– He chooses the idea of writing a list of things down that he values, along with a list of priorities and goals.

Your conversation may not flow this easily, but at least you’ve opened up a door and he knows that you care because you asked and didn’t prematurely share your insights at the wrong time.

 

 

Applying the Skills

This idea of being an emotion coach is really just a way of saying that you ought to attempt to be there for your children in the moments where they need you the most. The steps are interchangeable and don’t necessarily happen in the same order.  It doesn’t need to take long. It’s all about building skills and in time it will become easier to practice this.

When applying these skills, I suggest looking at the step that challenges you the most and go from there. Luckily, as you become aware of your own emotions, you’ll develop the headspace to empathize with your child. The important thing is that you’re mindful of what’s going on with your child’s emotions. It may be hard, but you can do it.

So how did it go with my little one who was upset about the fort fiasco? Well, in the end, she decided to draw a picture and write out her feelings. The picture she drew was a sad faced girl with tears. Next to her was another girl with a smile.

The caption read:

“I was sad that my mom wouldn’t let me change in the fort. But I’m happy now.”

It’s moments like these, I realize that taking time to practice coaching my kids to deal with their emotions is worth all the effort.

What are some strategies you use to help your child deal with upsetting emotions? What are the ways your child has learned to cope and calm themselves down when temper’s rise? Leave a comment if you like to share!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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