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Transcript of Emotional Intelligence & Emotion Coaching Acknowledgements: ‘Tuning in to Kids’ – Sophie...
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)