Five Steps to Responding to Your Child’s Emotions

When a child is experiencing strong emotions, it can be difficult for parents to know how to respond. “Emotion Coaching” is a tool developed by Dr. John Gottman to help parents respond to their child’s emotions in a way that develops the child’s emotional intelligence and teaches them how to regulate their own emotions. Here are five steps to being an emotion coach:

1. Become aware of your child’s emotion. Try to look at things from your child’s point of view and understand what they may be feeling.

2. View your child’s emotion as an opportunity to connect. Try not to get frustrated when your child experiences negative emotions. This is an opportunity for bonding and learning!

3. Communicate to your child that you understand and accept their emotion. Tell your child that you see why they feel the way they do, and that it is okay to feel this way.

4. Help your child label their emotions. Put a name to your child’s feelings – tell them that they seem “frustrated,” or perhaps “disappointed.” This will help develop your child’s emotional vocabulary so they can better express their own feelings in the future.

5. Set limits if necessary. You may communicate that your child’s feelings are acceptable, but their behavior was not. You may also problem-solve in this stage, working with your child to think of ways to solve their problem, or ways to behave more appropriately the next time this feeling arises.

As you can imagine, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re looking for more than five tips worth of parenting support, get in touch with me and we can talk through your needs and goals.

Source: Gottman, J. (2011). Raising an emotionally intelligent child. Simon and Schuster.