On the Eleventh Day of Christmas
…Whitehead Learning Group gave to me a new way to study! Unwrap this eleventh gift to learn how to raise emotionally resilient kids.
1) Be Aware Of Emotions
Our studies show that for parents to feel what their children are feeling, they must be aware of emotions, first in themselves and then in their kids... Emotional awareness simply means that you recognize when you are feeling an emotion, you can identify your feelings, and you are sensitive to the presence of emotions in other people (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
Don't be afraid to show emotions in front of your kids. Gottman found if parents hold back from showing feelings then kids can learn "Mom and Dad don't have these emotions and neither should I." Seeing arguments and then seeing them resolved amicably is far better than never seeing them at all. Kids need a role model not just for values, but also for feelings.
Such moms and dads may try to compensate for their fear of losing control by being “super-parents,” hiding their emotions from their children… The irony is that by hiding their emotions, these parents may be raising youngsters who are even less capable of handling negative emotions than they would have been if their parents had learned to let their feelings show in a nonabusive way. That’s because the kids grow up emotionally distant from their parents. Also, the children have one less role model to teach them how to handle difficult emotions effectively (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
2) Emotion Is An Opportunity For Intimacy And Teaching
When we checked in with these same families three years later, we found that the children who experienced such disrespectful, contemptuous behavior from their parents were the same kids who were having more trouble with schoolwork and getting along with friends. These were the kids who had higher levels of stress-related hormones in their bodies. Their teachers reported they were having more behavior problems, and their moms reported they had more illnesses (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
It takes practice but you want to see kids' emotional pain like you'd see their physical pain. It's not their fault. It's a challenge they're facing. And one you can help them with. Eric Barker quips that parents need to be "an emotional mentor, not a corrections officer."
3) Listen Empathetically And Validate Feelings
Barker reminds parents to "not argue the facts because feelings aren't logical." In the same way, during a child's emotional episode, don't immediately try to fix things. Parents need to establish they're a safe ally before they can solve anything. Use "empathetic listening" to get your children to talk, help them clarify, and most importantly, validate their feelings (again, not their behavior). They need to know that you're in their corner.
In this context, listening means far more than collecting data with your ears. Empathetic listeners use their eyes to watch for physical evidence of their children’s emotions. They use their imaginations to see the situation from the child’s perspective. They use their words to reflect back, in a soothing, noncritical way, what they are hearing and to help their children label their emotions (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
Barker encourages parents to "get out of your head and into theirs [the child's] to relate and empathize." Remember, probing questions can feel like an interrogation to a child (and it does nothing to create a safe environment for genuine conversation and growth). Instead, pitch observations: "I noticed you frowned when I mentioned we were going to the party." Wait for a response and allow the conversation to grow from there.
4) Help Them Label Their Emotions
One of the most significant tools we can equip our children with is resilience--how to cope when things don't go their way. As young as preschool, parents should be facilitating the conversation to help children label their emotions. After all, "a young child is not going to be able to say, Dearest mother, I apologize for my unnecessary irritability. My transition to the new kindergarten class has caused me an unexpected amount of stress. My future academic adjustments will be conducted with a level of grace heretofore unseen in our lovely household" (Barker, 2018).
You've got the words; they don't. Help them get a handle on what's going on by labeling what they feel.
Providing words in this way can help children transform an amorphous, scary, uncomfortable feeling into something definable, something that has boundaries and is a normal part of everyday life. Anger, sadness, and fear become experiences everybody has and everybody can handle. Labeling emotions goes hand in hand with empathy. A parent sees his child in tears and says, “You feel very sad, don’t you?” Now, not only is the child understood, he has a word to describe this intense feeling. Studies indicate that the act of labeling emotions can have a soothing effect on the nervous system, helping children to recover more quickly from upsetting incidents (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
Labeling is absurdly powerful. Research in neuroscience has repeatedly asserted the brain's ability to soothe emotions (read more here).
From Barker:
So when a child is crying because their sister got a better gift than they did, you don't want to be dismissive and say, "I'm sure you'll get a better present next time." You want to validate and label the feeling with something like, "You wish you'd gotten something more fun. I bet that makes you feel kind of jealous."
Now the kid is thinking, "They understand me." And they've learned something about how to cope by talking it out and labeling the emotions to get a handle on them. And from there, you can correlate the partnership of feelings and values. Gottman found this leads to really good things.
As we have discussed earlier, the implications of teaching a child to self-soothe are enormous. Kids who can calm themselves from an early age show several signs of emotional intelligence: They are more likely to concentrate better, have better peer relationships, higher academic achievement, and good health. My advice to parents, then, is to help your kids find words to describe what they are feeling. This doesn’t mean telling kids how they ought to feel. It simply means helping them develop a vocabulary with which to express their emotions (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
These strategies are helpful, tangible, and practical in the moment to help kids learn about emotions and what they're feeling and self-soothe during storms. But how do parents teach better behavior in order to correct the actual problem?
5) Set Limits And Help Them Problem-Solve
Again, all feelings are acceptable -- but all behavior isn't. Barker reminds us that parents need to set limits because the parent-child relationship is not a democracy. Once the emotions are dealt with, you can be firm.
After the parent acknowledges the emotion behind the misbehavior and helps him to label it, the parent can make sure the child understands that certain behaviors are inappropriate and can’t be tolerated. Then the parent can guide the child into thinking of more appropriate ways to handle negative feelings. “You’re mad that Danny took that game away from you,” the parent might say. “I would be, too. But it’s not okay for you to hit him. What can you do instead?” (John Gottman, Ph.D., "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting").
After you've listened empathetically, labeled feelings, and set limits on any bad behavior, it's time to fix things. Someone needs to lead the problem solving. And that person is not you.
This is another skill you want to help them develop. Remember that you won't always be there to tell your kids what to do so encourage them to come up with ideas, guide them to a solution in line with your values that is effective and takes other people's feelings into consideration. "This is how emotionally intelligent kids become resourceful, responsible children" (Barker, 2018).