John M. Gottman í 4 Summary
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child is John Gottman’s groundbreaking guide to teaching children to understand and regulate their emotional world.
Intelligence That Comes from the Heart
Every parent knows the importance of equipping children with the intellectual skills they need to succeed in school and life. But children also need to master their emotions. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child is a guide to teaching children to understand and regulate their emotional world. And as acclaimed psychologist and researcher John Gottman shows, once they master this important life skill, emotionally intelligent children will enjoy increased self-confidence, greater physical health, better performance in school, and healthier social relationships. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child will equip parents with a five-step “emotion coaching” process that teaches how to:
-Be aware of a child's emotions
-Recognize emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
-Listen empathetically and validate a child's feelings
-Label emotions in words a child can understand
-Help a child come up with an appropriate way to solve a problem or deal with an upsetting issue or situation
Written for parents of children of all ages, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child will enrich the bonds between parent and child and contribute immeasurably to the development of a generation of emotionally healthy adults. Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child
This book started off with the premise that parenting is so important YOU MIGHT MESS UP YOUR KIDS IF YOU DO IT WRONG which dropped it to a three star book right away. Other than that I did pick it up and put it down over the course of six weeks, continuing to come back to it as it gave me lots of food for thought.
In the big picture Gottman is advocating Emotion Coaching which broken down to five steps is: 1.) Being aware of the child's emotions 2.)Recognizing the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching 3.)Listening empathetically and validating the child's feelings 4.) Helping the child verbally label emotions 5.) Setting limits while helping the child problem-solve.
I personally didn't get a lot out of the big picture information, but I did get a lot out of smaller points in the book. For example, it changed the way I looked at displays of fear and anger in my son and made me realize how dismissive I am of them. Also the chapters in the end about the father's crucial role recapped a lot of good research and the following chapter which explored five different periods of children's lives and their emotional development in each was a revelation to me.
So, my final recommendation for this book is to not read it, but use it as a reference book. Skim the table of contents, section headings, etc. to find those parts which are most interesting and relevant to your parenting situation. Nonfiction John Gottman should feel sad for two reasons: (1) he buries astute analysis and fabulously practical advice (of which he is rightfully proud) inside a tomb of, frankly, boring writing and poor organization, and (2) he writes for a cripplingly heterogeneous audience. For a mother who already embraces her own emotions and honors them in her children, reading “Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child” feels like a socialite perusing a manual of polite social interaction written for the autistic. I wasted time and effort slogging through dry material justifying parental emotion-coaching when the boon of Gottman’s significant work and expertise can be summarized in a few pages (just watch me); at the same time, I recognize the need to teach others to swim before instructing them in the niceties of a butterfly kick. Color me frustrated.
Gottman’s division of parents into four types helps to clarify my chief complaint: the “dismissing parent” minimizes emotion and employs distraction, the “disapproving parent” negates and belittles emotion, the “laissez-faire parent” acknowledges emotion but doesn’t guide children to resolution, and the “emotion coach” values children’s emotions, “us[ing] emotional moments as a time to listen to the child, empathize with soothing words and affection, help the child label the emotion he or she is feeling, offer guidance on regulating emotions, set limits and teach acceptable expression of emotions, [and] teach problem-solving skills.” Though we all have our moments in each camp, readers are predisposed to be most like one of the four types.
Since dismissing and disapproving parents need the “why” behind emotion coaching Gottman starts out by explaining that children of emotion coaches unsurprisingly end up with “more general abilities in the area of their own emotions . . . includ[ing] being able to regulate their own emotional states” (i.e., moderating their reactions and soothing themselves when upset, even physically calming down their hearts faster). More interestingly, his research shows that these kids also “had fewer infectious illnesses[,] . . . were better at focusing attention[,] . . . related better to other people[,] . . . were better at understanding people[, and] . . . were also better at situations in school that required academic performance.” In order to explain this link between “parents’ responsiveness and children’s emotional intelligence,” Gottman theorizes that “[w]ith adults constantly invalidating her feelings, [a child begins to accept the adult’s estimation of the event, learns to doubt her own judgment, and] loses confidence in herself.” On an even more visceral level, he explains, “[b]abies whose emotional needs are neglected . . . don’t get the chance to learn th[at it is possible to go from feelings of intense distress, anger, and fear, to feelings of comfort and recovery]. When they cry out of fear, sadness, or anger, they experience only more fear, more sadness, and more anger. . . . [T]hey experience negative emotion as a black hole of anxiety and fear.” Okay, so “no thanks” to the black hole of anxiety and fear.
Now that he has dismissing and disapproving parents on board (and laissez-faire and emotion coaching parents bored), Gottman sets about explaining how a parent switches styles: analyzing and altering her approach to her own emotions. Don’t worry, he reassures, “[f]or most . . . becoming emotionally aware is not a matter of picking up new skills; it is a matter of granting themselves permission to experience what’s already there,” and fear not, “people can be emotionally aware . . . without being highly expressive.” Finally, we get to “the five key steps for emotion coaching . . . : (1) being aware of the child’s emotion; (2) recognizing the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching; (3) listening empathetically and validating the child’s feelings; (4) helping the child verbally label emotions [in order to “transform an amorphous, scary, uncomfortable feeling into something definable, something that has boundaries and is a normal part of everyday life”]; and (5) setting limits while helping the child problem-solve.” All the while making sure the child “understand[s] that . . . [a]ll feelings and all wishes are acceptable, but not all behaviors are.”
A chapter packed with helpful strategies follows. For example, I’ve long wondered whether I show too much emotion when dealing with my little ones, especially after reading the “Parenting with Love & Logic” admonition to never let your kids see you sweat. Gottman confirmed my maternal impulse that parents ought to model emotional intelligence, displaying emotions like anger and showing their children that “[s]trong feelings can be expressed and managed” (with the added benefit of showing that you care). Gottman’s other suggestions include: (1) “acknowledge low levels of emotion early on before they escalate”; (2) since “children - like all people - have reasons for their emotions, whether they can articulate them or not,” if you find your child “getting angry or upset over an issue that seems inconsequential, it may help to step back and look at the big picture of what’s going on in their lives”; (3) don’t joke or use discipline playing on children’s fear of abandonment; (4) “sharing simple observations usually works better than probing questions to get a conversation rolling”; (5) “avoid questions to which you already know the answer”; (6) “keep in mind that children also learn from their mistakes [and if] your child seems to be veering toward an idea that you know is unworkable but harmless, you may want to let her try it anyway”; (7) “avoid ‘siding with the enemy’”; and (8) “fantasy play . . . [has] utility in helping kids cope with a multitude of anxieties likely to peak in early childhood” such as fear of powerlessness, abandonment, the dark, bad dreams, parental conflict, and death. Lastly, my favorite new trick comes from one of Gottman’s study participants: ask yourself whether you and your child are “’settl[ing y]our differences like two people [or like] a guy and his dog.’”
Though I didn’t find the chapter on marriage and divorce particularly enlightening, I loved the daddy chapter and recommend that working parents of either gender read it in isolation (and sub in gender-neutral language) if they don’t have time for the whole book. Gottman writes, “[T]he best way for dads to be part of their children’s lives is to participate in . . . ‘family work,’ the day-to-day feeding, bathing, dressing, and nurturing of children.” After all, “[s]uccessful fathering is not about getting things done despite our children. . . . It’s about . . . taking time to be with our children one on one, relating to them on a level their age requires.” And the effect is cumulative: “[c]onversations come easier if you know about the events and people in your child’s life.” In sum, “family time is full of a million opportunities either to connect with your children or to distance yourself from them.” Of course, the great paternal irony is that men are socialized to work hard to provide for their families, but the harder they work (i.e., the longer hours they’re away and the more distracted they are when they’re home) the less they can emotionally provide for their families. At the end of the day, “men are often required to sacrifice financial gains and career development in order to strike a better balance between their work and family lives.” From Gottman’s lips to God’s ears.
The next edition could certainly benefit from a heavy-handed editor and a “choose your own adventure” approach; in the meantime, parents who take the time to sift through the existing material will be handsomely rewarded with Gottman’s substantial wisdom. Nonfiction اين كتاب راهكارهايي براي بالا بردن هوش هيجاني كودكان ارائه ميدهد كه تا حدودي موثرند.
آنچه بيش از هر چيز توجه مرا در حوزهي تربيت كودك جلب كرده اين است كه: كودك را رها كنيد و به تربيت خويش بپردازيد.
در تربيت فرزند و بالا بردن هوش هيجانياش بيشترين موردي كه حائز اهميت است نحوهي برخورد والدين با ناراحتي، سرشكستي، شادي و تمامي احساساتي است كه كودك تجربه ميكند.
احساس كودك را بشناسيم،، بر آن نام بنهيم ، كودك را درك كنيم و با او همدلي نماییم.
فروردين ٩٨ Nonfiction Great book about preparing your child to not only understand their emotions but to equip them for adulthood. The main premise of this book is to become an emotional coach to your children and it's really not that complex of a thing to do. There are three types of non-emotional coaching parents: dismissing, disapproving and laissez faire. The dismissing and disapproving are obvious but the laissez faire is a parent who appears to respect their children's emotions by letting them explore but the problem is they do not provide guidance about what to do with those emotions. None of these parenting styles actually help children.
And becoming an emotion coach is pretty simple: just make observations about their emotional state. Rather than dictating and interrogating children about their emotions, you offer observations, validate their emotions, empathize with them and just be there with them for those moments. Create green, yellow and red zones of permittable behavior. Yellow zone is needed because it allows children to push boundaries knowing the parent disapproves to allow them to grow.
If you're a parent you should ask yourself, from where is your power derived? If it's from your anger, from humiliating your child or from being far too permissive, these power sources will not help children grow and will likely teach them toxic coping methods. The power should be derived from the emotional trust you have with them. This is why simply being disappointed is punishment in and of itself because you have fostered a healthy emotional relationship with them prior that ensures how you feel about them matters to them.
Here's the simple but poignant point of this book: children have reasons for their emotions just like any adult. And just like any adult, you can observance, explore and empathize rather than dismiss their emotions as the incoherent emotions of a toddler or something.
Great read for any parent. Highly recommend. Nonfiction Every parent should read this book. Parents of toddlers, parents of teenagers. There are so many things in this book that can help parents build trusting, communicative relationships with their children, and establish methods to help a child become emotionally intelligent. The beginning of the book talks about how the emotional intelligence of a child is a far greater predictor of success (school performance, education, career opportunities, better peer relationships) in life than a child's mental intelligence, or IQ. It took a little while for me to be convinced that the strategies in this book would be effective, but now I'm trying to use them every day in my parenting.
Gottman presents five key steps to Emotion Coaching, which help children understand and regulate their emotions. The five key steps are these:
1. Be aware of the child's emotion
2. Recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
3. Listen empathetically and validate the child's feelings
4. Help the child verbally label emotions
5. Set limits while you help the child problem-solve
Step number four I found especially enlightening as the book talked about how the act of labeling emotions can have a soothing effect on the nervous system: 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 helps the child calm down. Children rarely understand their feelings or can adequately express why they're having those feelings, so they need a parent to help them label their emotions.
Another important thing I learned from this book is when to ignore Parental Agenda. Gottman gives this example:
Mom: What's the matter, sweetheart? You look kind of sad.
Andrew: I just wish I had a nicer sister.
Mom: Well, are you nice to her?
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.
The mom in this situation should have first responded empathetically; because she was critical, her son will probably not continue to share his feelings with her.
Gottman cites Haim Ginott's principle: All feelings are permissible; not all behavior is permissible. The goal of Emotion Coaching is to explore and understand emotions, not to suppress them. He also talks about how giving children choices helps them to build self-esteem.
Here's some more from the book, in case you're intrigued:
It is said that in Chinese the ideogram representing “opportunity” is encompassed in the ideogram for “crisis.” Nowhere is the linking of these two concepts more apt than in our role as parents. Whether the crisis is a broken balloon, a failing math grade, or the betrayal of a friend, such negative experiences can serve as superb opportunities to empathize, to build intimacy with our children, and to teach them ways to handle their feelings.
For many parents, recognizing children’s negative emotions as opportunities for such bonding and teaching comes as a relief, a liberation, a great “ah-ha.” We can look at our children’s anger as something other than a challenge to our authority. Kids’ fears are no longer evidence of our incompetence as parents. And their sadness doesn’t have to represent just “one more blasted thing I’m going to have to fix today.”
To reiterate an idea offered by one Emotion-Coaching father in our studies, a child needs his parent most when he is sad or angry or afraid. The ability to help soothe an upset child can be what makes us “feel most like parents.” By acknowledging our children’s emotions, we are helping them learn skills for soothing themselves, skills that will serve them well for a lifetime.
While some parents try to ignore children’s negative feelings in the hope that they will go away, emotions rarely work that way. Instead, negative feelings dissipate when children can talk about their emotions, label them, and feel understood. It makes sense, therefore, to acknowledge low levels of emotion early on before they escalate into full-blown crises. If your five-year-old seems nervous about an upcoming trip to the dentist, it’s better to explore that fear the day before than to wait until the child is in the dentist chair, throwing a full-blown tantrum. If your twelve-year-old feels envious because his best friend got the position he coveted on the baseball team, it’s better to help him talk over those feelings with you than to let them boil over in a row between the two buddies next week.
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.
Anyway, I am sold. Every parent should read this book. Nonfiction
Tl;dr: There are some problematic ideas/fallacies consistent with the decade in which this was published. The target audience was gen x fathers who had been raised by authoritarian parents.
The author contradicts himself. He recognizes that past generations didn’t provide patience and kindness for children, and that we are evolving away from authoritarian parenting. Children have always needed more emotional support, and culture has suppressed it.
However, he also asserts that emotionally intelligent children used to occur more frequently, and with the decline of the nuclear family. emotional intelligence has thus diminished. I disagree completely with the latter analysis, and there is not evidence to support this. There are many factors that contribute to child and youth problems today. I appreciate that he acknowledged the lack of living wages in America, as well as the loss of the village/social community that families used to rely on for their children’s upbringing. However, his continued emphasis on the dissolve of the nuclear family is skewed. For example, he claims that more women going to work, along with the shifting roles as fathers remain at home, has had a detrimental effect on society. What is his evidence? Additionally, while the author tried to use gender inclusive language for children, he only referred to children’s parents as “the father and the mother,” eliminating healthy LGBTQ families.
Again, later in the book, he repeats that the modern wave of feminism has destroyed families. There is so much privilege in saying that families need a good father. Way too much worship of the nuclear family. I believe all of these principles can happen in non traditional families. Love that he recognizes that dads often play “babysitter” instead of father and give too much to their careers, and this needs to shift.
The actual advice after he goes on about causes, is helpful. Empathy is the foundation of emotion coaching. Nonfiction I thought this book was very helpful in terms of things not to do (shaming, escalating, etc. etc.), but that the advice for what TO do was a bit naive (the fatal flaw of many parenting books): just use words and say it the right way and your preschooler will totally be rational! Yay! Yeah right, lol.
It was also pretty 90s dated--lots of stuff in here about saving kids from the rising danger of becoming criminals and hysterics about the ever rising rate of divorce and how it will surely turn all our kids into little sociopaths. Skip the editorializing and just read the hands-on advice. Nonfiction yes, i read parenting books. i'm a nanny and an overachiever. this one is excellent. even if you never hang out with kids, i think that at a certain age, we all realize that we need to be a good parent to ourselves - creating nurturing and discipline in our daily lives. so this book gave me tools to understand the underlying philosophy of my own parents, the way its affected my own style, and tools for changing it. Plus, it has helped immensely with taking care of a two and four year old. Nonfiction It's fine. Not earth-shattering or anything, but practical, substantial, and solidly supported. I had a previous love for Gottman from his marriage studies/books.
I don't really think it's necessary to memorize the emotion coaching steps or anything, since a lot of it just strikes me as common sense and practice, and once you embrace the role of emotion-coaching, you'll find your own ways to communicate with your particular kid in the way that works best for y'all. (But the specific steps might be really helpful for parents coming from a not really in touch with your own emotions place.) Still, there was some good advice about being mindful to separate the emotion from the manifestation of the emotion, how to recognize situations in which it is actually best *not* to emotion coach, and what to do in those situations.
In general, I'd really like for editors to recognize that PARENTING books, especially those for baby/toddler-years, are read by people who are SHORT ON TIME. I basically have the same complaint about this that I do about all the other parenting books I've read: IT SHOULD BE HALF AS LONG. Nonfiction I've read like 35 parenting books in the last 6 years. I thought I'd just skim this one. NOPE! It's a must read.
I'm a big fan of Gottman's marriage books and studies, and found his parenting advice no less compelling. When it comes to dealing with kids' emotions, he describes 4 types of parents:
-Dismissing: Emotions are uncomfortable; quickly tries to move past emotions or distract the kid)
-Disapproving: emotions are wrong/dangerous. Don't you raise your voice at me! Go to your room!)
-Laissez Faire: Parent empathizes but sets no boundaries and offers no advice on how to resolve them.
-Emotion Coaches: Uses empathy, sets limits, coaches the child on problem solving
Here are the steps to being an emotion coach:
1. Being aware of the child's emotion.
2.Recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
3. Listening empathetically and validating the child's feelings
4. Helping the child verbally label emotions
5. Setting limits while helping the child problem solve
Don't bother emotion coaching when you:
-Are Pressed for time
-Have an audience (do it later)
-Are too upset/tired for it to be productive (later)
-Need to address serious misbehavior
-When your child is faking an emotion to manipulate you
Nonfiction