Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child The Heart of Parenting

Product Description 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. Amazon.com Review In Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, psychology professor John Gottman explores the emotional relationship between parents and children. It's not enough to simply reject an authoritarian model of parenting, Gottman says. A parent needs to be concerned with the quality of emotional interactions. Gottman, author of Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, and coauthor Joan Declaire focus first on the parent (a "know thyself" approach), and provide a series of exercises to assess parenting styles and emotional self-awareness. The authors identify a five-step "emotion coaching" process to help teach children how to recognize and address their feelings, which includes becoming aware of the child's emotions; recognizing that dealing with these emotions is an opportunity for intimacy; listening empathetically; helping the child label emotions; setting limits; and problem-solving. Chapters on divorce, fathering, and age-based differences in emotional development help make Gottman's teachings detailed and useful. --Ericka Lutz Review "A significant gift to parents and children."—Common Boundary About the Author John Gottman, Ph. D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the author of Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. Joan DeClaire is a Senior Editor for Microsoft's Pregnancy and Childcare, an on-line consumer health-information service. Both authors live in Seattle. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Emotion Coaching: The Key to Raising Emotionally Intelligent Kids Diane is already late for work as she tries to coax three-year-old Joshua into his jacket so she can take him to daycare. After a too-quick breakfast and a battle over which shoes to wear, Joshua is tense too. He doesn't really care that his mom has a meeting in less than an hour. He wants to stay home and play, he tells her. When Diane tells him that's not possible, Joshua falls to the floor. Feeling sad and angry, he starts to cry. Seven-year-old Emily turns to her parents in tears just five minutes before the baby-sitter's arrival. "It's not fair to leave me with somebody I don't even know," she sobs. "But Emily," her dad explains, "this sitter is a good friend of your mother's. And besides, we've had tickets to this concert for weeks." "I still don't want you to go," she cries. Fourteen-year-old Matt tells his mom he just got kicked out of the school band because the teacher smelled somebody smoking pot on the bus. "I swear to God it wasn't me," Matt says. But