Emotion Coaching

How to deal with children (and adults too) when emotions run high? We want to do the right thing. But there is a difference between wanting to do right and actually having the wherewithal to carry it right. Good parenting involves intelligence as well as it involves emotion.

Research studies show that even more than IQ, our emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings, and to empathize with others determine our success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.

“Family life is our first school for emotional learning,” writes Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence...The emotional schooling operates not just the parents say and do directly to children , but also in the models they offer for handling their own feelings and those that pass between husband and wife.”

Parents who are involved with their feelings are called “Emotional Coaches”. Much like athletic coaches, they teach their children strategies to deal with life’s ups and downs. They do not object to their children’s displays of anger, sadness, or fear. Nor do they ignore them. They use emotional moments as opportunities for teaching their kids important life
lessons and building close relationships with them. 

Among the parents who fail to teach their kids emotional intelligence,
research studies have identified three types:

1. Dismissing parents, who disregard, ignore, or trivialize their children’s negative emotions.
2. Disapproving parents, who are critical of their children’s displays of negative emotions. They may reprimand or punish them for emotional expression.
3. Laissez-Faire parents who accept their children’s emotions and empathize with them, but fail to offer guidance or set limits on their children’s behavior.

How would the Emotional Coach act differently? Such a parent might start out like the Laissez-Faire parent empathizing with the child’s negative emotion by letting his/her child know that he/she understands what their child feels. The parent would go further providing guidance for what to do with her child’s uncomfortable feelings.

Research studies have found five steps of successful parent-child interactions:

1. They become aware of the child’s emotions.
2. They recognize the negative emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teachings.
3. They listen empathetically, validating their child’s feelings.
4. They help their child find words to label the emotion their child is having.
5. They set limits while exploring strategies to solve the problem at hand.

Empathy

Empathy is the key for understanding and improving difficult relationships. Dr. Helen Reiss has created E.M.P.A.T.H.Y. acronym for creating healthy interpersonal relationships in her book Empathy Effect. She has described the following Seven Keys to Empathy:

E for Eye Contact: 
When we look at each other empathically we get connected with each other without words. As the saying goes, “ Eyes are the windows in another person’s soul.” Such a gaze releases a sort of bonding hormone, oxytocin. Feelings of love, connection, and empathy flood into the gray matter of the brain. It also activates the social brain
regions.

M for Muscles of the facial expressions:
Our brain is wired to automatically mimic the facial expressions of others in normal situations. When someone smiles at us, we tend to smile back.

P for Posture:
A person’s posture reveals a great deal about internal emotional states. Slumped shoulders may signal dejection, sadness and even depression. Sitting up tall and upright suggests confidence or happiness.

A for Affect:
The human face is a critical guide in knowing the emotions a person is experiencing- positive feelings or negative feelings. Research shows that we can cultivate self-compassion and compassion for others in our life. It is not enough to notice a person’s feelings and needs but how we relate to his needs and feelings is very crucial in relationships.

T for Tone of voice:
Research shows tone of voice conveys over 38 percent of the nonverbal emotional content. It’s a vital key to empathy. Linguists refer to the pace, rhythm, and pitch of spoken language as “prosody”. Prosody infuses a layer of emotion to the spoken word. Become aware of what you convey by the way you communicate: admiration, sarcasm, contempt, surprise, fear or disgust. The tone of the voice reveals if there is empathic communication.

H for Hearing the whole person:
Active or reflective listening is called “empathic listening” which means paying attention to the other person. Identifying his or her emotions and responding with compassion without judgment. Neurologically speaking, it means tamping down our own amygdala. Nothing productive happens when two people are in “the red zone”. It’s important that both persons agree to take turns to speak. It’s called “talk-listen” by clinical psychologists.

Y for Your response:
With deep listening comes an empathic response. When you listen to someone empathically, you resonate with the feelings of others.

Questions to reflect on:

1. What’s your Emotional Coach style?
2. What do you need to change to be an effective Emotional Coach?
3. How do you deal with your life partner who may have a different parenting style?
4. How do you deal with your children who display their difficult emotions differently?
5. How do you manage your difficult emotions? What helps you remain focused and centered when you are in the midst of emotional upheavals?
6. Out of seven keys to empathy effect which ones are relatively easy for you to use and which ones are difficult for you to use?

Recommendations:

1. Keep a journal to notice effective changes you make in your parenting style over a period of time. 
2. Notice effective changes you make for creating positive empathy effect in your interpersonal relationships.
3. Share your journal entries with your life partner and learn from each other what works and what doesn’t work.
4. Be patient and persevere knowing that transforming your parenting style takes time.

References:
1. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman PH.D.
2. The Heart of Parenting by John Gottman PH.D.
3. Empathy Effect by Helen Reiss MD