Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child (10 page)

Two, if children are Emotion-Coached from a young age, they become well practiced at the art of self-soothing and they can stay calm under stress, which also makes them less likely to misbehave.

Three, Emotion-Coaching parents don’t disapprove of their children’s emotions, so there are fewer points of conflict. In other words, children aren’t reprimanded simply for crying over a disappointment or expressing anger. Emotion-Coaching parents do set limits, however, and give their children clear and consistent messages about what behavior is appropriate and what behavior is not. When children know the rules and understand the consequences for breaking them, they are less likely to misbehave.

And finally, this style of parenting makes the emotional bond between parent and children strong, so children are more responsive
to their parents’ requests. These children see their parents as their confidants and allies. They want to please their folks; they don’t want to disappoint them.

One mom tells how this phenomenon played out with her eight-year-old daughter during an episode of lying. Suzanne had found a mean-spirited note about another child among her daughter’s school papers. Although the note didn’t have her daughter, Laura’s, name on it, it was obviously written in Laura’s handwriting. When Suzanne confronted the girl about it, she balked and insisted she hadn’t written it, but Suzanne knew that Laura was lying. The incident bothered Suzanne for days, as she felt her perception of Laura’s innocence and her own trust in her daughter slipping away. Finally, she knew she had to confront the girl again, this time sharing her own feelings about the situation.

“I know you are lying about the note,” Suzanne said, clearly and firmly, “and it makes me feel very disappointed in you, very sad. I believe you are an honest person but now I know you are lying. I want you to know that when you are ready to tell me the truth, I will listen and I will forgive you.”

Two minutes passed in silence before Laura’s eyes welled up in tears. “I lied about the note, Mama,” she sobbed. That said, Suzanne gave her a hug and the pair had a long talk about the content of the note, the child for whom it was intended, and how Laura could resolve her conflict with the girl. Suzanne also reiterated to her daughter how important she felt honesty was to their relationship. To Suzanne’s knowledge, Laura hasn’t lied to her again.

When children feel emotionally connected to their parents and the parents use this bond to help kids regulate their feelings and solve problems, good things happen. As stated earlier, our studies show that children who are Emotion-Coached do better in terms of academic achievement, health, and peer relationships. They have fewer behavior problems, and are better able to bounce back from distressing experiences. With emotional intelligence, they are well prepared to handle the risks and challenges that lie ahead.

Chapter 3

T
HE
F
IVE
K
EY
S
TEPS FOR
E
MOTION
C
OACHING

I
REMEMBER THE DAY
I
FIRST DISCOVERED HOW EMOTION
Coaching might work with my own daughter, Moriah. She was two at the time and we were on a cross-country flight home after visiting with relatives. Bored, tired, and cranky, Moriah asked me for Zebra, her favorite stuffed animal and comfort object. Unfortunately, we had absentmindedly packed the well-worn critter in a suitcase that was checked at the baggage counter.

“I’m sorry, honey, but we can’t get Zebra right now. He’s in the big suitcase in another part of the airplane,” I explained.

“I want Zebra,” she whined pitifully.

“I know, sweetheart. But Zebra isn’t here. He’s in the baggage compartment underneath the plane and Daddy can’t get him until we get off the plane. I’m sorry.”

“I want Zebra! I want Zebra!” she moaned again. Then she started to cry, twisting in her safety seat and reaching futilely toward a bag on the floor where she’d seen me go for snacks.

“I know you want Zebra,” I said, feeling my blood pressure rise. “But he’s not in that bag. He’s not here and I can’t do anything about it. Look, why don’t we read about Ernie,” I said, fumbling for one of her favorite picture books.

“Not Ernie!” she wailed, angry now. “I want Zebra. I want him
now!”

By now, I was getting “do something” looks from the passengers, from the airline attendants, from my wife, seated across the aisle. I looked at Moriah’s face, red with anger, and imagined how frustrated she must feel. After all, wasn’t I the guy who could whip up a peanut butter sandwich on demand? Make huge purple dinosaurs
appear with the flip of a TV switch? Why was I withholding her favorite toy from her? Didn’t I understand how much she wanted it?

I felt bad. Then it dawned on me: I couldn’t get Zebra, but I could offer her the next best thing—a father’s comfort.

“You wish you had Zebra now,” I said to her.

“Yeah,” she said sadly.

“And you’re angry because we can’t get him for you.”

“Yeah.”

“You wish you could have Zebra
right now,”
I repeated, as she stared at me, looking rather curious, almost surprised.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I want him
now.”

“You’re tired now, and smelling Zebra and cuddling with him would feel real good. I wish we had Zebra here so you could hold him. Even better, I wish we could get out of these seats and find a big, soft bed full of all your animals and pillows where we could just lie down.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“We can’t get Zebra because he’s in another part of the airplane,” I said. “That makes you feel frustrated.”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, watching the tension leave her face. She rested her head against the back of her safety seat. She continued to complain softly a few more times, but she was growing calmer. Within a few minutes, she was asleep.

Although Moriah was just two years old, she clearly knew what she wanted—her Zebra. Once she began to realize that getting it wasn’t possible, she wasn’t interested in my excuses, my arguments, or my diversions. My validation, however, was another matter. Finding out that I understood how she felt seemed to make her feel better. For me, it was a memorable testament to the power of empathy.

E
MPATHY
: T
HE
F
OUNDATION OF
E
MOTION
C
OACHING

I
MAGINE FOR A
moment what it would be like to grow in a home without empathy. Imagine it as a place where your parents expect you always to be cheerful, happy, and calm. In this home, sadness or anger are taken as a sign of failure or an indication of potential disaster.
Mom and Dad get anxious whenever they encounter you in one of your “dark moods.” They tell you they prefer you to be content and optimistic, to “look on the bright side,” never to complain, never to speak ill of anyone or anything. And you, being just a kid, assume that your parents are right. A bad mood is the sign of a bad child. So you do your best to live up to their expectations.

The trouble is, things keep happening in your life that make it nearly impossible to keep up this happy front. Your baby sister gets into your room and destroys your comic book collection. You get in trouble at school for something you didn’t do and your best friend lets you take the rap. Each year, you enter the science competition, and each year, your project bombs. Then there was that godawful family vacation Mom and Dad had been touting for months. Turned out to be little more than one interminable car ride, listening to Mom gasp at “gorgeous” scenery while Dad lectured incessantly about “fascinating” historic sites.

But these things are not supposed to bother you. If you call your baby sister a rotten pest, your mother says, “Of course you don’t mean that!” Talk about the incident at school and your dad says, “You must have done
something
to provoke your teacher.” Science project disasters? “Forget it. You’ll do better next year.” And the family vacation? Don’t even mention it. (“After all the money your dad and I spent to take you kids to Utah …”)

So after a while, you learn to keep your mouth shut. If you come home from school with a problem, you just go to your room and put on your happy face. No need to upset Mom and Dad. They hate problems.

At dinner your dad says, “How was school today?”

“Fine,” you answer with a halfhearted smile.

“Good, good,” he replies. “Pass the butter.”

And what do you learn growing up in this make-believe home? Well, first you learn that you are not at all like your parents because they don’t seem to have all the bad and dangerous feelings that you do. You learn that because you have these feelings, you’re the problem. Your sadness is a fly in the ointment. Your anger is an embarrassment to the clan. Your fears are an obstacle to their progress. Their world would probably be perfect if it weren’t for you and your emotions.

Over time, you learn that it makes little sense to talk to your folks about your true inner life. And that makes you lonely. But you also learn that as long as you feign cheerfulness, everybody gets along
just fine
.

Of course, this can be confusing—especially as you grow older and see mounting evidence that life really is a drag sometimes. Your birthday comes and you don’t get that one toy you wished for. Your best friend finds a new best friend and you’re left standing in the cafeteria line alone. You get braces. Your favorite grandma dies.

And still, you’re not supposed to feel all these bad feelings. So you become a master at covering up. Better yet, you do your best not to feel. You learn to avoid situations that lead to conflict, anger, and pain. In other words, you steer clear of intimate human bonds.

Denying your own emotions isn’t always easy, but it can be done. You learn to come up with distractions, diversions. Eating sometimes helps to quash uncomfortable feelings. TV and video games are a great way to get your mind off your troubles. And just wait a couple years; then you’ll be old enough to get your hands on some
real
distractions. In the meantime, you’ll do your best to keep up a good front, keep your folks satisfied, keep everything under control.

But what if things were different? What if you grew up in a home where, instead of cheerfulness, your family’s primary goal was empathetic understanding? Imagine if your parents asked “How are you?” because they really wanted to know the truth. You might not feel compelled to answer “Just fine” every time because you’d know they could handle it if you said, “I had a rough day today.” They wouldn’t jump to conclusions, nor would they assume that every problem was a catastrophe they needed to fix. They would simply listen for what you had to say next and they would do their best to understand and help you.

If you said you had an argument with your buddy at school, your mom might ask you how that came about, how it made you feel, and whether she could help you find a solution. If you had a misunderstanding with your teacher, your parents wouldn’t automatically take the teacher’s side; they would listen carefully as you told your story and they would believe you because they trusted you to tell the truth. If your science project failed, your dad would tell you that he had had an experience like that when he was a boy; he knew
how it felt to stand there nervous in front of the class while the damn thing fizzled. If your baby sister ruined your comic book collection, your mom would put her arms around you and say, “I can see why you’re so angry. You cared a lot about those books. You’ve been collecting them for years.”

Chances are, you wouldn’t feel so lonely. You’d feel that your parents were there for you no matter what happened. You’d know that you could turn to them for support because you’d know that they would understand what was happening inside you.

In its most basic form, empathy is the ability to feel what another person is feeling. As empathetic parents, when we see our children in tears, we can imagine ourselves in their position and feel their pain. Watching our children stamp their feet in anger, we can feel their frustration and rage.

If we can communicate this kind of intimate emotional understanding to our children, we give credence to their experience and help them learn to soothe themselves. This skill puts us, as river rafters might say, “in the chute.” No matter what rocks or rapids lie ahead in our relationships with our children, we can stay in the flow of the river, guiding them forward on course. Even if the course becomes extremely treacherous (as in adolescence it often does), we can help our children steer past obstacles and risks to find their way.

How is it that empathy can be so powerful? I believe it’s because empathy allows children to see their parents as allies.

Imagine, for a moment, a situation where eight-year-old William comes in from the yard, looking dejected because the kids next door have refused to play with him. His dad, Bob, looks up from his paper just long enough to say, “Not again! Look, William, you’re a big kid now, not a baby. Don’t get upset every time somebody gives you the cold shoulder. Just forget about it. Call one of your buddies from school. Read a book. Watch a little TV.”

Because children usually believe their parents’ assessments, chances are William’s thinking: “Dad’s right. I’m acting like a baby. That’s why the guys next door don’t want to play with me. I wonder what’s wrong with me. Why can’t I just forget it like Dad says? I’m such a wimp. Nobody wants to be my friend.”

Now imagine how William might feel if his father responds differently when he comes in. What if Bob puts down his newspaper,
looks at his son, and says: “You look kind of sad, William. Tell me what’s going on.”