Free Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by JOHN GOTTMAN

her son, Toby, when another child is mean to him. “He gets upset over it and that hurts me, too,” she says. But when asked how she responds to him, she can only add, “I try to let him know that I love him no matter what; that we think the world of him.” While this is certainly good information for Toby to have, it probably won’t go far inhelping him repair the relationship with his playmate.
    Like the Disapproving and Dismissing parents, the Laissez-Faire parents’ style may be a response from their own childhood. Sally, whose father was physically abusive, wasn’t permitted to vent her anger and frustration as a child. “I want my kids to know they can scream and yell all they want,” she explains. “I want them to know it’s all right to say, I’ve been put upon and I don’t like it.’”
    Still, Sally admits she’s often frustrated by parenthood and her patience runs thin. “When Rachel does something wrong, I’d like to be able to say, ‘That wasn’t a very good idea; maybe we should try something different.’” Instead, she often finds herself “screaming and yelling” at Rachel—even slapping her at times. “I find I’m at the end of my rope and that’s all that works,” she laments.
    Another mom, Amy, remembers feeling a great sense of melancholy as a child—an experience she now suspects was clinical depression. “I think it came from fear,” she recalls, “and maybe it was a fear of just having the emotion.” Whatever its foundation, Amy can’t remember any adult in her life willing to talk to her about her feelings. Instead, she heard only the demand to change her tune. “People were always telling me, ‘Smile!,’ which I just hated.” As a result, she learned to hide her sadness, to withdraw. As she grew older, she also became an avid runner, finding solace from her depression in solitary exercise.
    Now that Amy has her own two children, she’s aware that one of her sons experiences this same type of recurrent sadness and she empathizes with him deeply. “Alex describes it as ‘a funny feeling,’ which is exactly how I felt when I was a kid.” Determined that she won’t demand smiles from Alex when he’s feeling down, she tells him, “I know what you’re feeling because I felt that way, too.”
    Still, Amy has a hard time staying with Alex when he’s despondent. Asked how she reacts when Alex expresses sadness, she says, “I go for a run.” In effect, then, she withdraws, leaving her son in much the same predicament she was in as a child. Alex drifts alone with his anxiety and fear; his mother is not available to offer him an anchor of emotional support.
    What effect do such accepting but noncoaching Laissez-Faire parents have on their children? Unfortunately, not a positive one. With such little guidance from adults, these children don’t learn toregulate their emotions. They often lack the ability to calm themselves when they are angry, sad, or upset, and that makes it hard for them to concentrate and to learn new skills. Consequently, these children don’t do as well in school. They also have a harder time picking up on social cues, which means they may experience difficulty making and keeping friends.
    Again, the irony is clear. With their all-accepting attitude, Laissez-Faire parents intend to give their children every opportunity for happiness. But because they fail to offer their kids guidance on how to handle difficult emotions, their kids end up in much the same position as the children of Disapproving and Dismissing parents—lacking in emotional intelligence, unequipped for the future.
    T HE E MOTION C OACH
    I N SOME WAYS , Emotion-Coaching parents aren’t that different from Laissez-Faire parents. Both groups appear to accept their children’s feelings unconditionally. Neither group tries to ignore or deny their kids’ feelings. Nor do they belittle or ridicule their children for emotional expression.
    There are significant differences between