Fostering emotional intelligence within your child or teenager, can be brought about by broadening your child’s emotional vocabulary, building their self awareness about emotions, what triggers your child has and then how they can manage those overwhelming emotions. Emotion Coaching works alongside positive forms of discipline, that rely on providing your family with clearly understood consequences for mis behaviour. When children are emotion coached by their parents, they feel heard and understood at those times of overwhelming emotional outbursts and they also feel they have an ally if they need to share issues in other realms, such as school or on the sporting field. Emotion Coaching parents learn to respond to their children when their feelings are still at a low level of intensity, before they escalate. Children learn to practice self-soothing and can stay calm even when experiencing strong emotions. Dr J Gottman’s research over the past 15 years has seen the benefits of coaching as listed above, but also that coached children have better peer relationships, are more settled at school, are more empathic and have a stronger emotional bond with their parents. How does this help behaviour? Well children living in families where there’s a stronger emotional bond, are more responsive to their parents’ requests! Emotion Coaching strategies can be taught to parents over a 3 session period and they can start integrating these practices straight away at home. Feedback on using such strategies at home has been ” closer bonds”, “being able to talk about complex issues with no confrontation”, “something I can use with all my children from 4 yrs up..”
