Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child (17 page)

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she began. “You look kind of sad.”

“I just wish I had a nicer sister,” Andrew replied.

“Well, are you nice to her?” Jean responded.

Imagine now how Andrew must have felt about this question. Here was Mom, appearing to be interested in how he was feeling. But as soon as he opens up, she responds with criticism. Granted, it’s well-intentioned, mild criticism, but it’s criticism nonetheless.

Now imagine how Andrew might have felt if Jean had responded instead with something like, “I can see why you might feel that way some days.” Such a statement would have made it clear to Andrew that Mom was focused on his sadness, that she was there to help him sort through his feelings about his sister and to come up with solutions. Instead, Jean put the blame on Andrew’s shoulders, a move guaranteed to make Andrew more defensive and less willing to own up to his role in the rift.

Parental agendas can get in the way even in situations where a parent knows a child has misbehaved, says Alice Ginott-Cohen, a parent educator and therapist who worked with her late husband, Haim Ginott. She advises parents to postpone talking about a child’s misdeed until after the feelings underlying the misbehavior have been addressed.

To get at the emotion underlying misbehavior, it’s best to avoid asking questions like, “Why did you do that?” This question sounds like an accusation or a criticism. The child will be more likely to respond
defensively than to offer useful information. Instead, try asking the child in a concerned way how he was feeling when the misbehavior occurred.

Granted, it’s not easy to ignore your parental agenda in the face of misbehavior—especially when you can feel the sermon on the tip of your tongue. But moralizing about a misdeed without addressing the feelings behind it is usually ineffective. It’s like putting a cold compress on your child’s fevered brow without treating the infection that’s causing the fever in the first place.

Let me give you an example: A mother arrives at the child-care center an hour later than usual to pick up her three-year-old son. The child, whom the mother often refers to as “stubborn,” starts acting sulky. He refuses to cooperate in putting on his jacket and heading for the door. The mother can either scold her son for noncompliance, or she can stop, think about the preceding events, and try to understand what the boy is experiencing emotionally. Choosing the latter, she might say this: “I was later than usual today, wasn’t I? Most of your friends have already gone home. Did that make you feel kind of worried?” The child, with his feelings of anxiety and tension validated, might feel suddenly relieved and offer his mom a hug. The struggle over the jacket might then dissolve and the two would be on their way.

To successfully connect with her son, the mother had to ignore her long-term agenda for making the boy less “stubborn,” more cooperative. Too often, parents react to a child’s misbehavior in just the opposite way. They cling tighter to the parental agenda, expressing concern over a child’s problem as if it were part of an enduring, negative character flaw. They may blame the child for having the trait. Andrew is oversensitive. Janet is too aggressive. Bobby is too shy. Sarah is too scatterbrained. Such labeling gets in the way of empathy. The labels are destructive because young children will, unfortunately, believe their parents and then try to fulfill their parents’ views as if they were divine prophecy.

In his memoir,
Father to the
Man, writer Christopher Hallowell remembers his father’s attempts to teach him to build a wooden box. “
If you can’t build
a box square,” his father said, “you can’t build anything.” After much work, Hallowell had a box, albeit a wobbly one. Reflecting on the incident, he wrote, “every time my
father examined it, he scowled and said, ‘You didn’t get something square. You will never be a good builder unless you can get everything square.’ At last he gave up scowling and never said anything more about the box. I kept odds and ends in it for years, feeling a certain affection for it each time I lifted the top, although never far away was a picture of my father’s disapproving look.”

For Hallowell, a successful writer, this sad interaction became a lasting memory of his relationship with his father. For us, it can serve as a poignant reminder that parental criticism has a powerful impact on children.

As parents, none of us wants our children to be satisfied building wobbly boxes. Nor do we want them to grow up lazy, withdrawn, aggressive, stupid, cowardly, deceitful. But we don’t want such weaknesses to become the characteristics by which our children define themselves, either. How can this type of negative labeling be avoided? The answer is to steer clear of global, enduring critiques of children’s personality traits. When correcting kids, focus instead on a specific event that happened here and now in their lives. Rather than, “You are so careless and messy,” say to your child, “There are toys scattered all over your room.” Instead of, “You’re such a slow reader,” say, “Reading every night for thirty minutes will make you faster.” Instead of, “Don’t be such a wallflower,” say, “If you speak louder, the waitress can hear you.”

CREATE A MENTAL MAP OF YOUR CHILD’S DAILY LIFE

Children are not always highly skilled at expressing their emotions. Your child may appear upset one day, but not be able to tell you what she is feeling and why. When this happens, it is useful to know a lot about the people, places, and events in your child’s life. This way, you will be better equipped to explore the possible source of your child’s feelings and help your child label them. You’ll also demonstrate to her that you think her world is important and this may help her to feel closer to you.

I like to think of this base of knowledge as a kind of map—one that parents make a conscious effort to carry in their minds. Considering such a map, a parent might say, “This is my child’s world and
these are the people who populate it. I know their names, their faces, and their personalities. I know how my child feels about each one. Here are my child’s closest friends and this one is his foe. My child thinks this teacher is nice, this coach is funny, but that teacher intimidates him. This is the layout of his school. I know where he feels most comfortable, and I know what dangers he feels he has to face here. This is his daily schedule. These subjects interest him most and these cause him trouble.”

Creating such a map of your child’s emotional world takes a lot of work and attention to detail. Parents need to spend time at their children’s daycare centers, schools, and after-school activities. They need to talk to their kids and get to know their kids’ friends and teachers. And like the map of any living community, this one needs to be updated regularly. Parents who keep such a map as a resource, however, find that it provides lots of common ground for meaningful discussion.

AVOID “SIDING WITH THE ENEMY”

When kids feel mistreated, they may turn to their parents for loyalty, compassion, and support. These are good opportunities for Emotion Coaching, as long as parents don’t make the mistake of “siding with the enemy.” It’s a challenge of course, especially when parents feel naturally aligned with the very authority figures their kids are likely to cross—such people as teachers, coaches, bosses, or other kids’ parents.

Imagine, for example, that an overweight girl comes home upset because her dance teacher made an insensitive comment about her size. If the mother’s been trying unsuccessfully to get her daughter to diet, she might be tempted to tell the girl the teacher is right. This would probably make the girl feel as though the whole world is against her. But what if the mother empathized with the girl, saying something like, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. You must have felt embarrassed and hurt.” This might draw the girl closer to her mom. And if the mother maintains her empathetic, supportive stance over time, her daughter eventually might allow her mother to help.

What do you do, however, if you’re the enemy, the target of your
child’s anger? I believe empathy can work in these situations as well, particularly if you’re honest about your position, which allows you to be nondefensive. Say, for example, that your child is angry because you have declared the television off-limits until she brings up her grades. Without changing your mind, you can say, “I understand why you’re mad. I’d feel the same way if I was in your position.”

Honesty and open-mindedness in the face of conflict may encourage your child to express
her
feelings as well, particularly if you can invite debate with comments like, “I may be wrong about this; I’m not always right. I’d like to hear your side.” While many parents find this unarmed position difficult, it pays off if it helps your kids see you as fair and willing to listen.

Remember that the goal of your conversations isn’t necessarily to seek agreement, but to communicate understanding. If your child suddenly announces “multiplication tables are stupid,” or “nose rings are neat,” you may be tempted to launch into a long-winded tirade to prove him wrong. You’ll probably have more impact, however, by responding in a way that leads to dialogue. You can start by saying something like, “I had a hard time learning multiplication tables, too.” Or, “I don’t care for nose rings myself, but why do you like them?”

THINK ABOUT YOUR CHILD’S EXPERIENCES IN TERMS OF SIMILAR ADULT SITUATIONS

This technique is helpful in situations where you’re having trouble feeling empathy for your child. Perhaps he is distressed about something you consider trivial or childish. Somebody made a crack about his glasses when he got up in class to give a report, or he feels anxious about his first day at summer camp. Knowing he’ll survive these trials (and many more), you may feel tempted to trivialize his concerns or ignore them. While this response may make
you
feel more comfortable, it’s not going to help your child much. In fact, he may feel worse, knowing that his mom or dad thinks he’s being silly.

One way to form a more sympathetic frame of mind is to translate your child’s situation to adult terms. Think how you’d feel if you overheard a co-worker whispering something about your appearance
just as you stood up to give a sales report. Remember how nervous you felt that first day on a new job.

In
Siblings Without Rivalry
, authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish offer the following tip to help parents understand the jealousy a small child feels at the arrival of a new sibling:
Imagine your spouse bringing home
a new lover and announcing that all of you will now live happily together under one roof.

DON’T TRY TO IMPOSE
YOUR
SOLUTIONS ON YOUR CHILD’S PROBLEMS

One of the quickest ways to short-circuit Emotion Coaching is to tell a child who’s sad or angry how you would solve the problem at hand. To understand why, think about the way this ill-fated dynamic commonly occurs in marriage. A typical scenario goes something like this: The wife arrives home from the office, distraught over a disagreement she’s had with a co-worker. Her husband analyzes the problem and, within minutes, outlines a plan for resolving it. But instead of feeling grateful for the advice, the wife feels worse. That’s because he has given her no indication that he understands how sad and angry and frustrated she feels. He has only demonstrated how simply the problem can be solved. To her, this may imply that she’s not too bright, or she would have come up with such a solution herself.

Imagine how much better the wife would feel if, instead of instant advice, her husband offers her a back rub. And as he massages her back, he simply listens while she describes the problem—and her feelings about the problem—in detail. With that done, she starts formulating her own solutions. Then, because she is trusting her spouse by now (and feeling great after the back rub) she might ask him for his opinion. In the end, the husband has a chance to offer his advice, and the wife has a solution she can hear. Instead of feeling put down, she feels empowered and supported by her partner.

This is how it works with parents and children as well. Parents may feel frustrated with kids’ unwillingness to take unsolicited advice—especially considering the relative amount of wisdom and life experience parents have to share with their kids. But that’s not the
way children typically learn. To propose solutions before you empathize with children is like trying to build the frame of a house before you lay a firm foundation.

EMPOWER YOUR CHILD BY GIVING CHOICES, RESPECTING WISHES

As adults, it’s easy to forget how powerless children can feel. But if you look at the world through their eyes, you can see how much emphasis society puts on getting children to comply and cooperate. Most small children have very little control over their daily lives. Sleepy babies get whisked out of their cribs and carted off to daycare. Older children bolt at the sound of the schoolyard bell and form straight lines for attendance. Parents set rules like, “No dessert until you clean your plate.” Or, “You’re not leaving the house in
that
outfit.” Then there’s the classic: “Because I said so.” Can you imagine making such controlling statements to a spouse or a friend?

I’m not saying that it’s bad to require children to obey and cooperate. For the safety and health of children—and the sanity of parents—children should not be allowed to domineer the household. But I have observed how commonly parents dramatize their children’s powerlessness by ignoring fairly trivial preferences and requests. This usually is not done in a mean way; rather, it’s the result of parents being overly stressed and hurried. (“No, you can’t play with your paints. We just cleaned up and there’s no time to do it!”)

Unfortunately for many kids, this heavy emphasis on cooperation means wishes and preferences are habitually ignored. Some children don’t get the chance to make even the smallest choices—such as what to wear, what to eat, how to spend their time. Many such grow up without a strong sense of their own likes and dislikes. Some never learn how to make choices at all. All of this hinders a child’s ability to act responsibly.