How parenting affects your child's emotional intelligence

I recently started reading a book that I am quickly growing to love. It’s titled “Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child-The Heart of Parenting” by John Gottman, Ph. D. It talks about the different ways parents deal with their child’s emotions. Depending on how you interact with you child when they are in a heightened emotion state can greatly influence their future. They came up with four main categories of parenting. Below I will address these different categories.

The Dismissing Parent

It’s very easy to be a dismissive parent without even knowing it. These parents don’t ignore their children or physically dismiss them. Rather they dismiss their child’s feelings by distracting them or trying to change their mood. These parents tend to pamper their children when they’re upset or try to make them happy again by giving them candy or letting them watch T.V. Sometimes it’s hard for the parent to face their children’s emotions so they tend to detour them and avoid the hard situation all together. This can stem from their own parents being dismissive and never learning to deal with their emotions themselves so now they can’t help their children. The parents are doing what they think is right because that is what was done for them when they were little and upset. Children then learn to suppress their emotions instead of learning to address them and deal with them. Parents rationalize and tell themselves it’s ok to ignore rather than address their children’s emotions because they are “just children.” And being upset over a broken toy is pointless and petty. The parents tell them it’s “no big deal” or “you shouldn’t be upset over something so little.” But this only confuses the children because to them it is a big deal and they are upset about it. They learn they can’t trust their emotions (Gottman).

The Disapproving Parent

Disapproving parents are much like dismissive parents but they go a step further. Instead of detouring their child to something positive they reprimand their child for have a “bad attitude” or being a “cry baby.” Parents here often focus on the action around the emotion such a stomping their feet when they’re sad or crying when they’re afraid. They often punish these behaviors and reprimand the child for “acting out.” Some of these parents see emotions such as sadness a waste of energy so they tell their child to just “smile and be happy.” Well if a child is upset about something it isn’t that easy and can be confusing that they are expected to flip their emotions on and off like a light switch. “Our research tells us that children from both groups have a hard time trusting their own judgment. Told time and time again that their feelings are inappropriate or not valid, they grow up believing there is something inherently wrong inside of themselves because of the way they feel” (Gottman).

The Laissez-Faire Parent

So I’m not completely sure why Gottman uses this name to describe this particular style of parenting… But it’s basically when a parent lets their child express any emotion anyway they want to. The parents don’t set boundaries for when the child gets angry and throws things or super happy and becomes a wrecking ball. The parents see emotions and actions as one and try not to interfere too much with each. They allow the child to express the emotion and they validate their feelings but it pretty much stops there. These parents don’t have any idea how to help their child learn and grow from an emotional experience.

The Emotion Coaching parent

So the emotion-coaching parent is what everyone should strive to be. They’ve done studies on hundreds of families that conclude that children who are emotionally coached by their parents are more successful throughout their lives. They tend to have better grades, get into less trouble, have better relationships, and a greater self-esteem. These parents set boundries on the way their children express different emotions but still allow them to deal with them. They teach them different ways to express emotions such as fear, anger, frustration, sadness, etc without acting out in negative ways. They show empathy for their children and validate their emotions often sharing stories about their childhood and a time they might have felt that same way. They help the child describe the feeling and name the emotion so they can deal with it better. Sometimes children don’t know what they’re feeling and that can make them frustrated. Putting discipline along with respect works well with emotion coaching (Gottman).

Anyway this is what I learned from the book so far! It’s an awesome book and I’m only on chapter two! I have so much more to learn and can’t wait! Also, I think it is SO IMPORTANT for parents to validate the feelings of their young ones no matter how “petty” they may seem. They are real to the child so they should be real to you. Parents need to look at heightened emotion in their young ones as a learning opportunity rather than an obstacle. I believe the more parents and children talk about how they feel and what’s going on in their lives the closer they become. Family is central to the plan of happiness so we need to do ALL we can to make sure our families are strong. Trust between parent and child is a key concept to a happy home.