Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child

If you love your child, you must apply these principles
Gottman bases his conclusions and principles of raising an emotionally intelligent child on sound long term research. But he also manages to write in a style that is easy and nice to read. The decision of buying or not buying this book might seem quite unimportant now but the outcomes of your choice may be great. Such outcomes will likely range between raising an immature individual who may blame you when he is adult for your inadequate effort developing him and raising a mature, self-responsible mentally and emotionally healthy individual who can be a responsible leader for himself and for others around him. A must-own book if you walk your talk when you say that you truly love your child and want all the best for him.

Not For Expecting Parents
Due to the strength of the reviews on this site (and being a slightly Type A person), I decided to move on to this book in my last few months of pregnancy when I had both the time and the mental capacity to absorb it. For all other expecting parents out there looking to be similarly prepared, I'd save this one for later. Much of the book focuses on your current parenting style (and bad habits) and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), we do not know ours yet. Plus, not having experience dealing with difficult parenting situations, many of the prescribed solutions seemed trite and even paradoxical. In its worst moments, the book reads like a bad script for a mid-week parenting sitcom but I'm sure that when our child comes into this world, I'll be thankful for the simplified advice.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child
Every parent should read this book. It has helpful information for all aspects of any relationship.

Different flavour than Gottman's marriage books
I got this book because I admire Gottman's marriage books, especially the idea that different people express themselves in different ways, and not all couples have to sit down and have "meaningful" heart to hearts to get along.

Unfortunately, this book leans the direction of only one way of doing it right. Those of us at the ends of bell curve that were so delighted to see how two similar grownups could have a good life together even if it didn't fit the TV world of everyone talking everything over, get left out of this book. If people do grow up to have normal but avoidant marriage styles, why can't that style carry over to parenting? Especially if your child is so like you, the two of you sometimes, in a tricky situation, just look at each other and nod.

Also, I found the assessment questions more black-and-white than in the marriage books. I wanted to answer "sometimes" to far too many. (E.g. "it is a good thing to express emotion"...this depends entirely on the situation!)

A Must-Read for all Parents, Grandparents and Childcare
Emotional Intelligence, EQ, has a lot of great resources, such as the classics by Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ and his workbooks, as well as a wealth of great studies by Harvard Business, MIT, McKinsey and Wharton, but this book takes a wonderful look at how to raise your child as an "emotional coach". Negative emotions are a fact of life, and how we use these emotional moments is an opportunity to teach important life lessons and build closer relationships with our child.

Beginning immediately in Chapter 1 on page 24, you find the these key responses for successful parent-child interactions and the building of emotional intelligence: 1. Become aware of the child's emotion, 2. Recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching, 3. Listen empathetically, validating the child's feelings, 4. Help the child find words to label the emotion he is having, and 5. Set limits while exploring strategies to solve the problem at hand.

Chapter 2 provides a quiz to assess your parenting style, as well as identifying and explaining the four types of parenting. Chapter 3 examines the 5 steps above and goes into greater (much-needed) detail and provides quizzes on emotions, such as anger and sadness. It provides a list of 20 emotions and this quote helps you to gain insight on this chapter, "Kids often express their emotions indirectly and in ways that adults find puzzling. (not you, of course) If we listen carefully with open hearts, however, we can often de-code messages children unconsciously hide in their interactions, their play, their everyday behavior." Listening and identifying the problems and possible solutions that are based on your family values help your child to identify and choose their solution.

Chapter 4 covers emotion-coaching strategies, such as scaffolding of praise, being aware of your own agenda and how that can effect your child-parent relationship when it comes into play, and how to empower your child. It is also filled with many other strategies and ideas that are insightful and helpful. This is where you can learn the ins-and-pouts :) of how to interact. A couple of other resources in this area of the chapter (there are so many) are The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child At a Time and the list in the back of the book of over 40 children's books to read together at different stages, identifying emotions together, might be something to look at.

Chapter 5 deals with marriage, divorce, and your child's emotional health. I, myself, am re-married and am always trying to seek to do the best for our child and keep what is in his best interest at the forefront of my mind. Naturally, as we are both re-married and all have our perspectives, it can be a challenge at times, and a true gift to work together. This chapter can help in this area. I'd also suggest taking a look at Mom's House, Dad's House: Making Two Homes for Your Child, Ex-Etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After a Divorce or Separation and Collaborative Divorce: The Revolutionary New Way to Restructure Your Family, Resolve Legal Issues, and Move on with Your Life for more resources in this area.

In the next chapter, Chapter 6, the Father's Crucial Role, it has truly helped me in the understanding of why making sure that everyone is involved (to what extent is different for everyone) is so important, from the parents to the new bonus-parents. Fathers in both roles are incredibly important, as are their level of involvement. For both boys and girls, it describes what fathers can do in practical terms and how to strike a balance between your work life and home life... something we all can stand to work on at times.

Chapter 7 teaches you how to be an emotional coach as your child grows up. If you are giving this to a grandparent, childcare worker, or even another parent, be sure they read this helpful last chapter. Going through each of the stages of development (similar to the sociological stages of Piaget, Erikson and Mead- you can find them under sociology and psychology classics), Gottman identifies the most ideal ways to interact. From birth to adulthood, you never stop being a parent... helping your child to be emotionally intelligent is incredibly helpful (and some might say critical) to their development and success in life.