Emotion coaching has come up a few times this week in work with parents. When the first emotion we see and feel from our children is anger it can be tempting to address the anger. It’s worth remembering that anger is a secondary emotion - underneath the anger can be hurt, disappointment, sadness, helplessness etc.
The natural response when our child’s anger is directed at us - as it often is - blaming us for their problems, misinterpreting our motives, criticising our parenting - is to defend ourselves using facts and logic. But at this point our children aren’t operating from their thinking brain, they’re operating from their emotional brain so logic and reason isn’t going to get us very far. It tends to lead to disconnection with nobody feeling heard or understood.
Things generally go better if we can meet our kids where they are and connect with what they’re feeling - not fixing or reassuring - just listening and reflecting back. “You’re feeling hurt that your friend didn’t wait for you, I get that.” “You’re feeling disappointed - you were looking forward to playtime and then you didn’t get to play with your friends.” “You’re feeling sad you’re favourites teacher’s leaving. That’s hard to manage.”
It’s not the time to pick up on how they’re expressing themselves or the way they’re speaking to us - tempting as it is - “I’m not going to listen to you while you’re being rude!” I’ve been there and didn’t always get it right.
There might be a time to have a problem-solving conversation about more appropriate/helpful ways to communicate their hard feelings - absolutely - especially if there are patterns of aggressive communication or behaviour - but this generally isn’t the time. There might also be a time to problem-solve what action needs to be taken - taking steps to protect them from the same situation happening again, or helping them to protect themselves, but again this isn’t it.
Emotion coaching looks like this -
1. Being curious for the emotion (behind the anger if there’s anger)
2. Personally connecting with what they’re feeling
3. Labelling the emotion
4. Validating and normalising feeling that way given the circumstances
5. Problem-solving and setting limits (there can be a huge gap before step 5 and this can be many short conversations/statements over time)
Emotion coaching brings connection. It means our kids aren’t alone with their hurt. They feel seen, heard, loved and cared for. It teaches them that big emotions don’t need to be avoided. They can be expressed and processed. Other people can help.