Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child (14 page)

Addressing feelings that are low in intensity before they escalate also gives families a chance to practice listening and problem-solving skills while the stakes are small. If you express interest and concern over your child’s broken toy or a minor scrape, these experiences are building blocks. Your child learns that you are his ally and the two of you figure out how to collaborate. Then if a big crisis occurs, you are prepared to face it together.

S
TEP
N
O
. 3: L
ISTENING
E
MPATHETICALLY AND
V
ALIDATING THE
C
HILD’S
F
EELINGS

O
NCE YOU CAN
see that a situation presents an opportunity to build intimacy and teach problem solving, you’re ready for perhaps the most important step in the Emotion-Coaching process: empathetic listening.

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. But most importantly, they use their hearts to feel what their children are feeling.

Tuning in to your child’s emotions requires that you pay attention to your child’s body language, facial expressions, and gestures. Surely you’ve seen that furrowed brow, that tense jaw, or that tapping foot before. What does it tell you about the way he’s feeling? Be aware that your child can read your body language as well. If your goal is to talk in a relaxed, attentive manner, adopt a posture that
says so. Sit at his level, take a deep breath, relax, and focus. Your attentiveness will let your child know that you take his concerns seriously and that you’re willing to spend some time on the matter.

As your child reveals his feelings, reflect back what you hear and notice. This will assure your child that you are listening carefully and that you think his feelings are valid. Here’s an example:

When a birthday package arrives in the mail for Nicky, his four-year-old brother, Kyle, reacts with anger: “That’s not fair!” Kyle protests. Typically, the boys’ dad responds by explaining that, in time, it
will be
fair: “When your birthday comes, Grandma will probably send you a package, too,” Dad says.

While this statement certainly explains the logic of the situation, it flatly denies how Kyle is feeling in the moment. Now, on top of feeling jealous about the package, Kyle probably feels angry that his dad doesn’t understand his unenviable position.

Imagine how differently Kyle might feel if his dad were to respond to his outburst with a simple observation: “You wish Grandma had sent you a package, too. I bet that makes you feel kind of jealous.” Yeah, that’s right, Kyle might think. Even though it’s Nicky’s birthday and I’m supposed to be cool about this, I feel jealous. Dad understands. Now, Kyle’s in a better spot to hear his dad’s explanation that things will even out in time.

A mom in one of our parenting groups had a similar experience when her daughter came home from school complaining, “Nobody likes me.”

“It was so hard not to argue the facts with her,” the mother said, “I know she’s popular at school. But when I listened and empathized instead of arguing, the crisis was over in a minute. I’m learning that when she’s talking about her feelings, it doesn’t really help to apply logic. It’s better to just listen.”

Here’s another example of empathetic listening, taken from a conversation one of the moms in our parenting groups had with her nine-year-old daughter, Megan. Notice that the mom’s first order of business is to acknowledge her daughter’s feelings.

Megan
: I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.

Mom
: You don’t? That’s strange. Usually you like to go to school. It makes me wonder if you’re worried about something.

Megan
: Yeah, kind of.

Mom
: What are you worried about?

Megan
: I don’t know.

Mom
: Something is sort of worrying you, but you’re not sure what it is.

Megan
: Yeah.

Mom
: I can tell that you feel a little tense.

Megan
(with tears): Yeah. Maybe it’s because of Dawn and Patty.

Mom
: Did something happen today at school with Dawn and Patty?

Megan
. Yeah. Today at recess Dawn and Patty were just ignoring me.

Mom
: Oh, that must have hurt your feelings.

Megan
: It did.

Mom
: It sounds like you don’t want to go to school tomorrow because you’re worried that Dawn and Patty might ignore you at recess again.

Megan
: Yeah. Every time I went up to them, they just walked away and started doing something else.

Mom
: Oh, gee. I’d feel terrible if my friends did that to me.

Megan
: I did. I felt like I was going to cry.

Mom
: Oh, honey (hugging her). I’m so sorry that happened to you. I can see that you feel very sad and angry about the way your friends were treating you.

Megan
: I do. I don’t know what to do tomorrow. I don’t want to go to school.

Mom
: Because you don’t want your friends to hurt your feelings again.

Megan
: Yeah, and that’s who I always play with. Everybody else has their own friends.

And so the conversation continued with Megan giving the mother more details about her interaction with the girls. The mother reported that there were several times when she wanted to tell her daughter what to do. She wanted to say things like: “Don’t worry. Dawn and Patty will change their tunes tomorrow,” or, “To heck with those girls. Find some new friends.”

The mother resisted doing this, however, because she wanted to convey her understanding and to allow Megan to come up with some answers on her own.

I think this was a good instinct. If the mother had told Megan not to worry, or if she had implied there was some simple solution, she would be saying that she finds her daughter’s problem inconsequential, silly. Instead, in her mom, Megan found a confidante and felt comforted. After several more minutes of listening and reflecting back what her daughter was telling her, Megan’s mother started exploring ideas of how to handle the situation. And because Megan knew that her mother understood her dilemma, she was receptive to her mom’s advice. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Megan
: I don’t know what to do.

Mother
: Do you want me to help you come up with some ideas of what you could do?

Megan
: Yeah.

Mother
: Maybe you could talk to Dawn and Patty about the way you feel when they ignore you.

Megan
: I don’t think I could. That would be too embarrassing.

Mother
: Yeah, I can see why you might feel that way. That would take a lot of courage. Gee, I don’t know. Let’s think. (Time passes while the mother rubs her daughter’s back.)

Mother
: Maybe you could just wait and see what happens. You know Dawn; she can be really mean one day, but then the next day she’ll be her old self again. Maybe she’ll be a better friend tomorrow.

Megan
: But what if she isn’t?

Mother
: I’m not sure. Do you have any ideas?

Megan
: No.

Mother
: Is there anybody else you’d like to play with?

Megan
: No.

Mother
: What else is happening on the playground?

Megan
: Just kick ball.

Mother
: Do you like to play kick ball?

Megan
: I never played it.

Mother
: Oh.

Megan
: Krista always plays it.

Mother
: You mean Krista, your friend from Camp Fire?

Megan
: Yeah.

Mother
: I’ve seen you with Krista at Camp Fire meetings and you’re not shy around her at all. Maybe you could ask her to teach you how to play.

Megan
: Maybe.

Mother
: Good. Then you have another idea.

Megan
: Yeah, maybe that would work. But what if it doesn’t?

Mother
: It seems like you’re still worried. Like maybe you’re afraid there just won’t be anybody to play with and you won’t know what to do with yourself.

Megan
: Yeah.

Mother
: Are there things that you can think of that are fun to play all by yourself?

Megan
: You mean like jump rope?

Mother
: Yeah, jump rope.

Megan
: I could bring my jump rope just in case.

Mother
: Yeah. Then if you don’t play with Dawn and Patty, or the kick ball game doesn’t work out, you could play jump rope.

Megan
: Yeah I could do that.

Mother
: Why don’t you go put your jump rope in your backpack right now so you don’t forget.

Megan
: Okay. Then could I call Krista and see if she can come over after school tomorrow?

Mother
: That’s a great idea.

By empathizing, taking her time, and letting Megan come to her own conclusions, the mother was able to guide her daughter toward some workable options.

As you listen to your child in an emotional moment, be aware that sharing simple observations usually works better than probing questions to get a conversation rolling. You may ask your child “Why do you feel sad?” and she may not have a clue. As a child, she hasn’t had the benefit (or detriment) of years of introspection, so she may not have an answer on the tip of her tongue. Maybe she’s feeling sad about her parents’ arguments, or because she feels overtired, or she’s worried about an upcoming piano recital. But she may or may not be able to articulate any of this. And even when she
does come up with an answer, she might be worried that the answer is not good enough to justify the feeling. Under these circumstances, interrogation can just make a child clam up. It’s better to simply reflect what you notice. You can say, “You seem a little tired today,” or, “I noticed that you frowned when I mentioned the recital,” and wait for her response.

Also, avoid questions to which you already know the answer. Queries like, “What time did you get in last night?” or, “Who broke the lamp?” set a tone of mistrust and entrapment—like you’re just waiting for your child to lie. It’s better to open such conversation with straightforward observations—something like, “I see you’ve broken the lamp and I’m disappointed” or, “You came in sometime after one last night and I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

Sharing examples from your own life can also be an effective way to demonstrate your understanding. Take the case of Kyle, the little boy who was upset over his brother’s birthday present. Imagine if Dad had said, “I used to feel jealous when I was a little boy and Aunt Mary got a gift.” This would assure Kyle that emotions like his are so valid that even Dad experienced them. And now that he feels understood, he can accept Dad’s comforting explanation that “Grandma will probably send you a present on your birthday, too.”

S
TEP
N
O
. 4: H
ELPING THE
C
HILD
V
ERBALLY
L
ABEL
E
MOTIONS

O
NE EASY AND
extremely important step in Emotion Coaching is to help children label their emotions as they are having them. In the examples above, Kyle’s dad helped him to identify his unpleasant feeling as jealousy. Megan’s mom used lots of labels to help her daughter define her problem, including “tense,” “worried,” “hurt,” “angry,” “sad,” and “afraid.” 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. While we’re not certain how this soothing effect happens, it’s my theory that talking about an emotion as you’re experiencing it engages the left lobe of the brain, which is the center of language and logic. This, in turn, may help the child to focus and calm down. 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.