Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

by John M. Gottman, Joan De Claire, Joan DeClaire

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684838656
• ISBN13: 9780684838656
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful for parents

You will be able to understand your kids and yourself better with halp of this book

Fantastic and practical parenting resource

This book is a practical and well-presented guide to recognizing, validating, and helping your child deal with emotions. Gottman starts out with his rationale for Emotion Coaching, helps the parent assess their current parenting style, discusses the Key Steps and strategies for emotion coaching, and devotes an entire chapter to Marriage, Divorce, and Your Child's Emotional Health. At the end of the book he includes an age range breakdown of specific emotions to expect from your child (anxiety separation, fear of the dark, fear of death, adolescent separation...) In the Marriage chapter, Gottman also includes a short summary of his renowned work in the study of relationships. He applies emotion coaching to avoiding the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that end marriage: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. This book made me reevaluate the way I interact not just with my child, but my husband, and friends as well. I found it very enlightening.

One of the best parenting books!

You can find a lot of books about parenting, but many of them are just pop psychology, the solitary opinion of the author.Gottman is definitely not one of them. He is known as one of the leading psychologists in the area of family and marriage psychology. This book presents the essence of his research findings about raising emotionally intelligent children.His advise is surprisingly easy and is based on a 5 step model:1. Be aware of your child's emotion2. See your child's emotions as an opportunity to be close together3. Actively listen to your child and validate the feelings4. Help your child to verbalize his feelings5. Help your child solve problems, while setting clear limitsGottman clearly explains how you can implement this 5-step-model in daily life and what to do when problems arise. His real life examples make reading really fun.All in all, an excellent parenting book! As a supplement, I can also recommend the book by M. Seligman: "The optimistic child"

Excellent parenting book

I am a child/family psychologist and don't like most parenting books for my clients because they present theories as facts without the research behind it. This is one of 3 books that I recommend because it is well-researched yet easy to read and comprehend. Gottman's work in the field of psychology is highly respected, and the research from which this book emanates is thorough and rigorous. Yet his format in the book is such that you can immediately begin to apply his "emotion-coaching" technique. If you are having difficulty coping with your child's emotional outbursts, read this book!

A fantastic audio book every parent should have!

This audio book has opened my eyes to what children are really thinking and how to deal with them. I have tried the recommended ideas with my own daughter and it has worked wonders. It can be difficult at first, but with patience, these ideas will create a bond between you and your child that you may not have known could exist.

Marvellous!

"Emotional Intelligence" has recently been recognized as an important life skill. A combination of important traits (including self-discipline, ability to handle anger appropriately, self-esteem, empathy, and social skills), emotional intelligence allows one to handle life's frustrations and to "work and play well with others." These skills have been shown as more important than I.Q. as predictors of success in one's personal relationships and career. This wonderful book teaches parents how to raise their children to have emotional intelligence. The book sees children's problems and frustrations as opportunities for "emotion coaching" - helping them learn how to deal with their emotions. The book also identifies four "parenting styles" - two of these styles react negatively to chldren's negative emotions, one style accepts them but doesn't help the child deal with them, and the "Emotion Coaching" style accepts the emotions and teaches the child what to do with them. I wish my parents had had this book - I was a "difficult" child, prone to tantrums, etc., but much of my difficulty came from feeling frustrated and not knowing what to do about it. My parents were loving, but didn't really know how to handle the problem. This book will create greater understanding between parent and child, and will help the child grow up to be an emotionally healthy adult.