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Parents (Emotion Coach)

Parenting, we feel is the ‘NAGGING ISSUE’ of this century, because of various reasons :

  1. Growing emotional challenges Parents & Children are facing in this highly competitive world
  2. Changing family structure
  3. Diminishing time parents are spending with their children
  4. Latch-key-kid concept
  5. Children exposed to various external influences especially the so called “Third Parent” - Television
  6. Rising divorce rates leading to ‘Single Parenting’
  7. Changing attitude of society - ‘Make my day’ attitude
  8. Ever increasing influence of addictions (drugs, alcohol etc.) on children

Parenting is a complex activity that includes many specific behaviors that work individually and together to influence child outcomes. It is assumed that the primary role of all parents is to support, influence, teach, and control their children.

Since last few decades developmental psychologists have been interested in knowing how parenting style influences the development of children’s social and emotional competence.

Parenting style captures two important elements of parenting 

  1. Parental responsiveness (warmth, Supportiveness) and
  2. Parental demandingness (control, supervision & disciplinary efforts)

As reported in the journal Genetic Psychology Monographs in 1967, the work by Diana Baumrind was some of the earliest research that looked at the connections between different styles of parenting and children's personalities and behavior , more commonly called as ‘Baumrind Typology’.

Parents according to whether they are high or low on parental control and warmth creates a typology of four parenting styles : Authoritarian, Uninvolved, Permissive & Authoritative

One way to look at parenting is to divide it up along the lines of control and warmth. In this way, You can put parents into four very broad categories :

In EQ language, the parenting styles can be classified as :

Dismissing
(Low warmth, Low control)

Characteristics :

  1. Treats child's feelings as unimportant, trivial
  2. Disengages from or ignores the child's feelings
  3. Wants the child's negative emotions to disappear quickly
  4. Characteristically uses distraction to shut down child's emotions
  5. Does not try to solve problems with the child & believes that passage of time will resolve most of the problems
  6. Focus more on how to get over emotions than on the meaning of the emotions itself
  7. They often try to shrink the problem down to size, encapsulate it and put it away so it can be forgotten

Effects of this style on children :

  1. They learn that their feelings are wrong, inappropriate & not valid
  2. They may learn that there is something inherently wrong with them because of the way they feel
  3. They may have difficulty regulating their own emotions
  4. They learn to ignore their feelings and don’t learn how to deal with emotions

 

Disapproving
(Low warmth, High control)

Characteristics :

  1. Judges & criticizes the childs emotional expressions
  2. The children are reprimanded, disciplined,or punished for expressing emotions like fear, anger & sadness
  3. Believes expression of negative emotions should be time limited
  4. Believes negative emotions need to be controlled, they reflect bad character traits
  5. Believes emotions make people weak, children must be emotionally tough for survival
  6. Believes negative emotions are unproductive & waste of time

Effects of this style on children :

  1. In general same as for the dismissing type
  2. Kids learn that emotional- intimacy or the expression of emotions is a high risk proposition; it can lead to humiliation, abandonment, pain & abuse
  3. Your anger is causing embarrassment to others

 

Laissez-Faire 
(High warmth, Low control)

Characteristics :

  1. Freely accepts all emotional expression from the child
  2. Offers comfort to the child experiencing negative feelings
  3.  
  4. Offers little guidance on behavior
  5. Does not teach the child about emotions
  6. Does not teach problem solving methods to the child
  7. Believes that managing negative emotions is a matter of physics; release the emotion & the work is done

Effects of this style on children :

  1. They don’t learn to regulate their emotions
  2. They have trouble concentrating, forming friendships & getting along with other children
  3. They often lack the ability to calm themselves when they are angry, sad and upset

 

Emotion Coach
(High warmth, High control)

Characteristics :

  1. Values child’s negative emotions as an opportunity for intimacy and an important opportunity for parenting
  2. Can tolerate spending time with sad, angry or fearful child; does not become impatient with the emotion
  3. Is aware of & values his or her own emotions
  4. Is sensitive to child’s emotional states, is not confused or anxious about the child’s emotional expression & knows what needs to be done
  5. Does not make fun of child’s negative feelings
  6. Does not say how the child should feel

Effects of this style on children :

  1. They learn to trust their feelings, regulate their own emotions;and solve problems constructively
  2. This style would directly influence EQ components such as emotional self awareness, assertiveness, empathy, interpersonal relationship, flexibility, impulse control &self regard
  3. Make children more responsible
  4. Children can communicate their feelings with others & stay connected

When a problem or crisis is there in the household, emotionally intelligent parent is expected to follow certain steps as Emotional coach :

  1. First acknowledge your own feelings about the situation and the child involved. Every situation or stimulus in the environment triggers stored up feelings (both negative and positive). Most times these feelings are not relevant to the present situation and so should not be a guide to the reaction to the situation.
  2. Recognize the negative feelings that can potentially block good thinking and put them aside to be dealt with later.
  3. Listen closely to what the child is saying, paying attention to the emotional message beneath the words or actions- what is the child trying to show? How is he hurting? Why is he hurting? What is the underlying trigger for this hurt?
  4. Respond to the child's hurt, not to the words or to the behaviour that results from the hurt; but rather to the need for comfort or safety to release the hurt feelings that are triggering the inappropriate behaviour.

Parenting as Emotional coach should be a natural way of parenting, & not only when there is crisis or problem & it includes

  1. Teaching children how to correctly identify and label their feelings. This means teaching the feeling words, not only sad, glad, and scared, but also the variations of these such as frustration, excitement, etc., and to identify the real origin of these feelings.
  2. Helping children correctly perceive others' feelings and therefore appropriately responding to them. Frustration means something is hard to accomplish 
    Anger usually means that someone is trying to hurt you (even yourself as in when you berate yourself for doing something wrong)". The appropriate response to frustration is different from the response to anger.
  3. Helping children deal with their feelings in appropriate ways. This includes assisting them to see and understand another's point of view. According to Child Development theorists children below age 6 or 7 have difficulty seeing another's point of view. They can only see the world form their own perspective. As they get older and their development proceeds with good guidance they get better at understanding and tolerating other people's point of view and therefore are better at cooperating and compromising.
  4. Helping children build good relationships. Although human beings are born with an inherent connection to all human beings, they are not necessarily born with the skills needed to develop and nourish these connections.
  5. Teaching constructive and creative problem solving skills.

Emotion –Coaching process :

  1. Become aware of child's emotion
  2. Recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy & teaching
  3. Listen emphatically, validating the child’s feelings
  4. Help the child find words to label the emotion s/he is having
  5. Set limits while exploring strategies to solve the probem at hand

While solving problem :

  1. Find the goal(s) of the behavior----WHAT DID YOU WANT?
  2. Help child verbalise actions taken towards goal(s)---WHAT DID YOU DO TO GET IT?
  3. Assess effectiveness—HOW DID THAT WORK?
  4. Examine full range of possible behavioral options---WHAT WERE/ARE ALL THE OPTIONS?
  5. Choose the most effective option—WHAT IS THE BEST CHOICE?
  6. Check back to see how the plan worked—LET’S SEE HOW THAT GOES?

In conclusion Parenting style as Emotion –coach would help children grow as caring , responsible human beings, which is truly the need of the hour!!