Emotional Intelligence & Emotion Coaching

Acknowledgements:

‘Tuning in to Kids’ – Sophie Havighurst & Ann Harley

‘Bringing Up Great Kids’ – Australian Childhood Foundation

Dr John Gottman - ‘Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child’

Daniel Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson - ‘The Whole-Brain Child’

Presented by Maria Hutchings (NECAMHS)

What is Emotional Intelligence?

The ability to:

identify and understand your own emotions

successfully use emotions during social interactions

use your emotional awareness to guide you when solving problems

deal with frustration and be able to wait to get what you want

keep distress from overwhelming your ability to think

be in control of how and when you express feelings

Emotional Intelligence

Why is emotional intelligence important?

It allows you to have awareness and control over what you do

Results in lower levels of stress, which is associated with better health & stronger immune systems

Enables more satisfying friendships and lasting intimate relationships

You can soothe yourself, and are therefore able to calmly focus, concentrate and think when faced with a challenging situation

Makes you more resilient – change and stress are easier to deal with

How emotional intelligence develops

Influenced by environment and socialisation including parents, sibling relationships, teacher influences, peer relationships and others such as grandparents, carers and childcare workers.

Some children born with more difficult reactive emotional styles.

These children may need more input from parents/carers to teach them to regulate and manage emotional styles

Brain Basics - horizontal

Left side Logical thinking Organising thoughts into sentences

Right side Experience emotions Reading non-verbal cues

Left and Right Brain

Bringing Up Great KidsChapter 2. The message centre 7

Lateral Brain Development

Bringing Up Great KidsChapter 2. The message centre 8

Bottom-up Brain Development

Bringing Up Great KidsChapter 2. The message centre 9

Brain basics – vertical

‘reptile brain’ – ‘downstairs brain’ Acts instinctually Makes split second survival decisions Brain stem and limbic region Amygdala – allows us to act before we think

‘mammal brain’ – ‘upstairs brain’ Leads us toward connection and relationships Allows us to think before we act

Dan Seigel – hand model of brain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-lfP1FBFk

Integration

Different parts working together in a coordinated, balanced way

Horizontal integration Left brain logic with right brain emotion

Vertical integration Higher thoughtful parts with lower gut reaction and

survival parts

Brain plasticity

Brain physically changes throughout our lives

Experiences change the physical structure of the brain

100 billion nerve cells with ten thousand connections

Emotional management styles

Dismissive

Disapproving

Laissez-Faire

Emotion coaching

* John Gottman DVD – parenting styles.

Five Key Steps to Emotion Coaching

1. Become aware of the child’s emotion and especially notice lower intensity emotions such as sadness, disappointment or frustration.

2. View these emotions as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching and try not to be impatient with expression of negative emotions

3. Communicate your understanding and acceptance of these emotions

4. Help child use words to describe what they feel.

5. Help set limits or help problem solve. You may also communicate that all wishes and feelings are acceptable but some behaviours are not.

Why emotion coaching improves behaviour

1. Emotion coaching is about responding to children when their feelings are still at a low level of intensity, which reduces the need for children to escalate their emotions and behaviour and provides a more optimal time to teach children about emotions.

2. If children are emotion coached from an early age they become well-practiced at self-soothing. They are more likely to stay calm, even when they are experiencing strong emotions.

Why emotion coaching improves behaviour

3. Emotion coaching does not involve disapproval of children’s emotions so there are fewer points of conflict. At the same time, there are clear limits about inappropriate behaviour – children know the rules and the consequences for breaking them.

4. Emotion coaching creates a strong bond between parents/carers/teachers and children, so children are more responsive to their requests and feel respected and valued.

Discuss

Thinking about your own parents or reflecting on conversations with friends …

What are some of the ways people can be dismissive of emotions?

Eg Telling you not to worry.

Ways of dismissing emotions

Offer advice

Ask why a child did or said what they did

Tell a child not to worry

Talk only about yourself

Jump straight into problem solving

Take the side of the other person instead of listening to the child’s perspective

Offer distractions

Emotion coaching communication

When you emotion coach you attend to the emotions the child experiences. This involves:

Thinking about how the child is probably feeling

Possibly considering a comparable situation for yourself

Helping the child put a verbal label on the feeling.

Emotion detective activity

Emotion coaching communication

You may respond by asking:

Did that make you feel _____ when ______?

Were you feeling ______ when _______?

It sounds like that made you feel _________?

You may also respond by reflecting how you would feel in a similar situation

That would make me feel ______ too.

It makes me feel ______ when ______ happens also.

Reflecting Feelings Statements It looks like you’re very happy.

You seem a bit sad.

I can see you are very frustrated.

Are you feeling annoyed?

It sounds like you were really scared.

How did you feel when your toy was taken?

I wonder if you’re a bit annoyed?

I bet that made you pretty grumpy.

Emotion Coaching

Empathic Name the Validate the

Statements = Feeling + Feeling

Emotion Coaching

Can pair comments about negative feelings with positive coping statements

Eg. “I can see you’re getting really frustrated when the tower keeps falling over but you keep on trying and hopefully it will stay up eventually.”

Avoid asking “Why?”

Avoid asking a child why they are feeling a certain way because they will often have no idea or not have the words to describe the reason.

Tantrums Upstairs tantrum

Child decides to throw a fit Could stop if they wanted to Able to control emotions and make decisions May look out of control Needs firm boundaries and clear discussion about

appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

Downstairs tantrum No longer able to use upstairs brain because so

upset ‘flipped their lid’ – amygdala has hijacked higher

parts of brain Needs nurturing, comforting and soothing No sense talking consequences or appropriate

behaviour

Emotion coaching scenarios

You observe Braydon deliberately drawing on Jordan’s picture. Jordan gets angry and hits Braydon.

Harry comes in from playing outside crying and saying that he’s lost his jumper

Sally suddenly scribbles all over her drawing and says ‘ I can’t draw I’m so stupid’.

Emotional Intelligence

Brain Structures

Resources

Tuning in to Kids – emotionally intelligent parenting program by Sophie Havighurst & Ann Harley (University of Melbourne, 2010)

Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting by John Gottman with Joan Declaire (Fireside Press 1997)

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson (Delacorte Press 2011)

Bringing Up Great Kids Parenting Program – Australian Childhood Foundation (2011)