The heart of parenting 1 --- parenting styles

Taking children's emotions requires empathy, keen listening skills and a willingness to see things from their perspective. It also takes selflessness.

Assessing your parenting style

emotional coaching requires emotional awareness and listening and problem-solving behaviors.
Some barriers may be the result of the way emotions were handled in the homes where parent grew up
was anger always viewed as potentially destructive? fear as cowardly, sadness as self-pitying?

Dismissive parents:

sensitive dismissing parents may feel quite deeply for their children and are simply reacting out of parents' natural urges to protect their offspring. They believe it is unhealthy to dwell on negative emotions for too long. They engage in problem-solving with their children. They focus on what it will take to get over the emotion rather than focusing on the emotion itself

Disapproving parents:

their children are often reprimanded, disciplined for expressing sadness, anger and fear.
they focus on the behavior surrounding the emotions. like stamp her feet in anger, or cry
they are judgemental of the reasons that cause their children's emotions. they'll comfort the kid if he is sad because his mom left, while respond harshly if the kid is sad because he doesn't want to nap.
their way to respond to angry: if a kid starts yelling, his mom responds "i won't put up with that". s
some parents reprimand or punish their children in order to toughen them up. especially boys.
some parents encourage their girls to swallow their anger and turn the other cheek
their way to respond to sad: see it as a waste of energy. useless time and doing nothing constructive. it's not worth to be sad over losing a toy.

Results:

children of disapproving or dismissing parents have a hard time trusting their own judgment. their self-esteem suffers
they have more difficulty learning to regulate their own emotions
children who are reprimanded, isolated, spanked for expressing their feelings get a wrong message that emotional intimacy is a high-risk proposition. it can lead to humiliation, abandonment, pain, and abuse.
Children who aren't given the chance to experience their emotions and deal with them effectively grow up unprepared to face life's challenges

The laissez-faire parent:

they accept their children's emotions. however, they don't know how to help children to learn from emotional experiences. They don't teach their children how to solve problems and do not set limits on behaviors. they let their children get away with inappropriate expression of emotion.
results: children don't learn to regulare their emotions. They lack the ability to calm themselves.

The benefits of negative emotions:

it's time to slow down and pay attention to what's missing in my life. Sometimes, people don't know where their sadness comes from.
when your kid is sad, it's an opportunity to get closer to her. Hold her and talk to her and let her say what's on her mind. Help her to identify her feelings, talk about what to do next time, how to handle this.
after listening to the kid's story, the emotion coacher will tell a story of their childhood. this let kids know it's ok to have his feeling

use anger to command respect
let kids just because they are angry doesn't mean they are bad. teach them to express their anger in ways that are not destructive.

Emotion coaching parents:

accept all the feelings but not all behavior.
if the kids' behavior are harmful to themselves, to others. They will put a quick stop to the offensive behavior and redirect their children to an activity of expression that's less harmful.
not to fix everything that goes awry, but listen to them. Sometimes they need to learn how to handle the emotions of less degree so that they handle bigger on later in life.
It's ok to feel this way, and there is something she can do about it
the coaches are not afraid to show their own emotions around their children. they can serve as models for their children. The child learns that sharing sadness can lead to a greater level of intimacy and bonding.
When parents say or do hurtful things to their children, they are not afraid to apologize. and they talk about their feeling at that moment and talk about how he might handle such situations better in the future.
consistently respond to their children when feelings are still at a low level of intensity

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