Parental Emotional Availability and Emotion Coaching: The Keystone of Emotional Development

Tuesday, September 10, 2024.

According to Gottman, children raised by emotion-coaching parents tend to exhibit higher levels of emotional intelligence, resilience, and social competence. These children are better equipped to manage stress, navigate social conflicts, and maintain healthier relationships.

Emotion coaching allows children to recognize and label their emotions without shame, giving them tools to process challenging experiences (Gottman & DeClaire, 1997).

For instance, during a tantrum, an emotion-coaching parent might say, “I see that you’re upset because you can’t have the toy right now. It’s okay to feel frustrated.”

This approach acknowledges the child's feelings while simultaneously guiding them toward understanding and regulating their emotional response.

Over time, these children learn to calm themselves down, articulate their emotions, and work through challenges with greater self-awareness.

Gottman’s Work on Emotional Coaching and Parenting: A Deep Dive

John Gottman, a renowned psychologist and researcher, has significantly contributed to our understanding of emotional development within families, particularly through his concept of "emotion coaching."

His groundbreaking research has shown that how parents interact with their children emotionally shapes not just their childhood but also their ability to form healthy relationships and manage emotions in adulthood.

Emotion Coaching: A Five-Step Process

Gottman’s method of emotion coaching is designed to help parents foster emotional intelligence in their children, emphasizing that emotions—positive or negative—are opportunities for connection and teaching. The core principle of this method is that children must learn to identify, express, and manage their emotions, with parents serving as the primary guides.

Gottman outlines a five-step process for emotion coaching:

• Be aware of the child’s emotions: This requires parents to tune in to their child's emotional world. It means paying attention not just to outbursts or tears but also to subtle emotional cues such as body language, facial expressions, and changes in tone.

• Recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching: Rather than seeing negative emotions (anger, sadness, frustration) as misbehavior to be corrected, emotion-coaching parents view them as a chance to teach valuable life skills and bond with the child.

• Listen empathetically and validate the child’s feelings: Empathy is at the heart of emotion coaching. Parents listen without judgment and acknowledge their child’s emotions without trying to "fix" them immediately. For instance, saying, “I understand that you’re upset because you didn’t get to play with your friend today. That must be really hard,” validates the child’s feelings and shows empathy.

• Help the child label the emotion: Teaching children to name their emotions (e.g., frustration, disappointment, excitement) helps them understand what they are feeling and why. This builds emotional vocabulary and allows children to process their emotions more effectively.

• Set limits while helping the child problem-solve: While acknowledging emotions is key, parents must also teach their children how to deal with these emotions in constructive ways. This could involve setting limits (e.g., “It’s okay to be mad, but it’s not okay to hit your sister”) and guiding the child toward problem-solving strategies, like brainstorming ways to calm down or find a solution to the problem.

The Science Behind Emotion Coaching

Gottman’s research, in partnership with colleagues like Lynn Fainsilber Katz and Carole Hooven, demonstrated that children of parents who practice emotion coaching exhibit better emotional regulation, stronger social skills, and higher academic achievement than children of parents who are emotionally dismissive (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996). They are also less prone to behavioral issues like aggression and anxiety.

In one of his long-term studies, Gottman found that children who experienced emotion coaching were more successful in both personal and professional domains as adults. This is because emotion-coached children develop a secure attachment style and are better equipped to navigate life's challenges with emotional resilience.

Emotion Coaching and Marital Dynamics

Interestingly, Gottman’s work in the realm of emotion coaching doesn't just stop with parenting. His research on marital dynamics also ties into the emotional climate of the home and how it affects children. In his studies of couples, Gottman discovered that parents who engage in healthy, emotionally intelligent communication tend to model these skills for their children.

Couples who practice empathy, active listening, and conflict resolution provide their children with a blueprint for managing emotions in relationships (Gottman & Silver, 1999). Conversely, when parents engage in high-conflict, emotionally volatile relationships, children are more likely to experience emotional dysregulation and internalize maladaptive relationship patterns.

Gottman’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—are markers of unhealthy emotional interactions in couples that can also negatively impact children’s emotional development (Gottman & Silver, 1999). These emotional patterns in the household can lead to anxiety, poor self-esteem, and difficulty forming healthy emotional attachments.

Criticism vs. Emotion Coaching

One of Gottman’s key insights is that many parents unwittingly engage in emotion-dismissive parenting—a style where they downplay or ignore their children’s emotions, offering solutions instead of empathy. This style, Gottman argues, stems from parents' discomfort with emotional expression, particularly around negative emotions like sadness or anger.

Parents who engage in dismissive responses—like saying, “Stop crying, it’s no big deal,” or “You’re fine, don’t be upset”—miss out on opportunities to connect with their children emotionally. This can leave children feeling misunderstood and emotionally isolated, leading to longer-term difficulties with emotional self-regulation and social interactions.

Long-Term Impact of Emotion Coaching

Gottman’s studies indicate that the effects of emotion coaching are long-lasting. Children raised in emotionally supportive environments are more likely to develop secure attachment styles, form healthier friendships, and manage stress effectively as adults. These children also tend to have higher self-esteem, better performance in school, and more fulfilling romantic relationships later in life (Gottman, 1997).

Moreover, the emotional climate of the household has been shown to affect children’s physical health. Emotion-coached children experience fewer stress-related health issues, such as sleep disturbances, headaches, and gastrointestinal problems, as their ability to regulate emotions positively impacts their physiological responses to stress

The Consequences of Emotional Unavailability

On the other hand, when parents are emotionally unavailable—either through neglect, chronic stress, or lack of attunement—the results can be detrimental to a child’s emotional development. Children of emotionally unavailable parents may feel insecure, unworthy, or unsupported, often leading to attachment issues, emotional expression difficulties, and low self-esteem (Crittenden, 2015).

Parental emotional unavailability doesn’t always result from malicious neglect; sometimes, parents are overwhelmed by their own emotional struggles, stress, or trauma, making it difficult for them to be emotionally present for their children. However, children who lack this emotional connection may struggle to identify their emotions, have trouble regulating their feelings, or display disruptive behaviors as a way to seek the emotional connection they're missing.

Final thoughts

As noted in research by Patricia Crittenden, children in emotionally neglectful environments may internalize the belief that expressing their emotions is futile or even dangerous, leading to avoidance of vulnerability in relationships as they grow older (Crittenden, 2015).

This can manifest in adulthood as attachment difficulties, relationship challenges, and an overall struggle with emotional regulation.

By focusing on emotional availability, parents can strengthen their child’s capacity for emotional resilience, fostering the skills necessary for successful relationships and personal well-being throughout their lives.

Emotion coaching provides an essential roadmap for this journey, while awareness of the risks of emotional unavailability emphasizes the critical importance of parents remaining attuned to their children's emotional needs.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Crittenden, P. M. (2015). Raising parents: Attachment, representation, and treatment (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Gottman, J. M., & DeClaire, J. (1997). The heart of parenting: Raising an emotionally intelligent child. Simon & Schuster.

Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1996). Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families: Theoretical models and preliminary data. Journal of Family Psychology, 10(3), 243-268.

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Three Rivers Press