Emotion Coaching

What it is

Gottman and colleagues followed families from when the children were five until they were eight, and presented models linking parents' meta-emotion philosophy to their parenting, to children's physiological regulation, to children's ability to regulate emotion and to how children were doing in middle childhood. The practical version of the idea was later built into parenting courses.

In effect

The best-known test is Tuning in to Kids, a programme from the University of Melbourne. In a 2010 community trial led by Sophie Havighurst, 216 parents of four- and five-year-olds were randomly assigned to a six-session course plus two boosters, or to a waiting list. Parents on the course reported more emotion coaching and fewer dismissive beliefs and behaviours, and were observed using more emotion labels with their children. Children's emotional knowledge improved, and both parents and teachers reported fewer behaviour problems. A 2012 effectiveness trial, with the course delivered by community practitioners, found similar changes in parents and a greater fall in parent-reported behaviour problems than in the waitlist group.

What it does not say

Emotion coaching does not mean giving children whatever they want when they are upset, and the research on it says nothing against limits. It concerns how a parent responds to the feeling, not whether a rule is kept. Nor do the trials show that coaching alone explains the improvements, since the courses also targeted parents' own emotional awareness and regulation, and much of the outcome data comes from parents who knew they had taken the course.

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