This book, though over twenty years old, gives the basic information parents need if they want to guide their children in emotionally healthy ways. It is a how to for parents who want to help their children deal with their emotions as they grow and develop. I’ve not seen another to match it. It is a step by step how to do it.
The book is based on years of research following the growth and development of children and their parents.
For parents looking for immediate direction as to how to deal with emotions, chapter three is the place to turn to. The author describes the parental role as being an “emotional coach” by helping the child learn how to deal with his emotions. There are five steps for the parent:
• Being aware of the child’s emotions;
• Recognizing how the child is feeling as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching;
• Listening empathetically and validating the child’s feelings.
• Labeling the feeling, and
• Setting limits and helping child problem solve.
The author writes extensively on the first step, the parent being aware of the child’s emotions. To be aware requires empathy, “the ability to feel what another person is feeling” (73). The section discusses factors that can hinder a person’s ability to empathize and ways to increase one’s ability to do so. It gives the reader suggestions of what life circumstances can be helping or hindering a parent’s ability to be aware of how the child may be feeling.
Chapter four is a detailed discussion of strategies that can help parents become effective emotional coaches. Having the chapter is a recognition by the author that there will be ups and downs as is reader tries to become an efficient coach. The strategies are suggested ways of coping with those ups and downs.
Chapter seven describes emotional coaching opportunities that come as children develop from birth through adolescence. The author describes the emotional upheavals children tend to experience as consequences of their developmental changes.
The advise given in this book is based on the author’s extensive research into the lives and parenting behavior of fifty-six married couples who had children aged four or five. The researchers gathered a rich, deep pool of information about each couple’s marriage, their children’s peer relationship and the family’s ideas about emotion (35). The parents could be grouped based on their parenting behavior. Three years later the researchers did a follow-up study measuring the children behavior. The advice given in this book is the style of parenting the researchers found the parents had exhibited three years earlier of the children who were currently functioning well. The research means that the advice given here is based on a solid research findings.
Parents have the opportunity to reflect on themselves as parents in Chapter two. There are questions related to different parenting styles. Parents’ answers may help them recognize their style, if they had not already done so. There is also a discussion of potential long term consequences for the children of the different styles.
Chapter 5 is a discussion of marriage, divorce and children’s emotional health with suggestions of how emotional coaching can support the child through marital upheavals. Chapter 6 is dedicated to the role fathers can have in the emotional development of their children.
In reviewing this book after many years I wonder if someone has not updated it. There are so many books out there on childrearing, I can not keep up with the flow. My ideal book for parents would keep Gottman’s basic thesis of parents as emotional coaches with the first step being to recognize the child’s feelings with the child and to do so from birth on. The parent is the adult who is there, can, hopefully, work with the individual child or children involved and how they are actually feeling at the moment.
In the second step when the author talks about intimacy I wonder if he is not really addressing building relationships. In child rearing we talk so much about building and maintaining relationships but not so much about how to do it. Is recognizing with a child how that child is feeling and feeling with him part of building that close loving relationship Bronfenbrenner, Brazelton, Greenspan and others have written about? I’d leave the teaching to step 5.
Listening and labeling are vital to coaching. Listening is as important as observing in being able to empathize accurately with another. Gottman’s examples of listening include parents asking questions. Questions gently asked can help children sort out their feelings. But it is vital to know what makes a good question and what can hinder the recognition of feelings. I’d add asking questions to Gottman’s advise such as Amy Alamar presents. Labeling if done sensitively can validate children’ feelings.
Problem solving, learning how to deal with the feeling, is a major step in coaching. Other authors such as Shure and Crary give more clues how to teach children to think and problem solve. Look for upcoming reviews of these books.
Would the process of development for parents be clearer if commonalities of the development of the child’s emotional needs and his cognitive development were acknowledged?
The strength of Gottman’s book is that he focuses on emotional coaching not some other important child rearing value. He gives parents actual examples of what empathizing looks like, of how to verbalize to the child what is happening and teaches the child the relevant vocabulary while helping them deal with a real situation. Until I can find a book to recommend that has the strengths of Gottman’s while adding new insights I’ll keep listing Gottman’s.
References:
Alamar, Amy & Sclichtine, K. The Parenting Project: Build Extraordinary relationships with our kids through daily conversation. (2019). Beverly, MA: Quarto Publishing Group USA, Inc.
Brazelton, T., & Greenspan, S. (2000). The Irreducible Needs of Children; What every child must have to grow, learn, and flourish. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.
Bronfenbrenner, Urie, (Ed.) (2005). Making human beings human: bioecological perspectives on human development Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Gottman, John (1997). Raising an emotionally intelligent child: The Heart of parenting. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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