Many years ago I remember a New Yorker cartoon depicting two parents bringing their child to school for the first time and talking to the principal. To paraphrase what I remember from the cartoon their comment was something like this: “We have raised Johnny so that he has never experienced a harsh word or any negativity in his whole life. We expect you to do the same for him here at school.”
Yes, the cartoon is still good for a laugh. But it also raises some points about preparing our children to manage their relationships with others. The first point to consider is that our children have already learned a great deal about how to manage their relationships with others before they ever reach school age. They have, of course, learned how to manage relationships from YOU. Training in emotional regulation, especially as it deals with how to negotiate conflict, begins at home.
The second point that our cartoon brings out is that it is extremely unrealistic to think that we can protect our children from conflict situations. Conflict, ranging from our responses to dissatisfaction and annoyance to out and out embattlement, will forever be part of our lives. Raising children requires that we teach them how to manage the full spectrum of conflictual experiences that they might expect to have throughout their life.
So let’s begin by looking at what happens during childhood that prepares our children, poorly or expertly, to negotiate the full spectrum of conflict situations.
First, remember that conflict is always centered on an emotional reaction to something we don’t like. The emotional reaction is a given. We like something or we don’t like something. We want something or we don’t want something. It is what it is. But what it isn’t, is the behavioral response that follows. That is a choice. It is often an unconscious choice but it is a choice. This is crucial to remember. Our brains have evolved so that the emotional response to a situation is triggered before the part of our brain that decides how to respond gets the message. The first is a reaction; the second is a choice.
So the first thing that we need to teach our children is how to identify their own emotional responses. When they are just beginning speech this means teaching them the names of their emotions. Sadly, evidence remains that little girls and boys are given different messages about their emotions. Little girls when they fall down and scrape a knee are given lots of sympathy and told that they are hurt and that crying is okay. Little boys in contrast are often told just the opposite. They are told to be little men and don’t cry. They are told to be brave. Emotions for boys and girls are too often labeled differently. If we want to truly help our children to negotiate conflict then it is critical to teach them to accurately name as many varieties of emotional responses as possible. The ‘faces’ wall chart that clinicians use can be a valuable tool for teaching this level of self-awareness.
As children learn to label their own emotions they also begin to learn how to choose their behavioral responses. Their first learning experience is to observe you as parents and how you negotiate your own conflictual relationships. Many parents carry a belief that dictates that they should never argue in front of their children. Somehow they assume that the thin walls between bedrooms will isolate their children from seeing them argue. But this is far from the truth. For one thing, you will give your children the impression that disagreements are something to feel ashamed about and hidden from others.
How you resolve your parent-to-parent arguments will be mimicked in your child’s behavior. This will be particularly obvious in their relationships with their siblings. If, for example, you are a shouter, don’t be surprised if you find your oldest child duplicating this behavior by shouting at his or her younger siblings. How you handle your emotional responses to conflict will be a model for your children.
Along with observing how you as parents manage your conflicts they will also be observing how you manage conflict with them. If you are a shouter, do you shout down every ‘I don’t want to!’ from your child? Does your child respond equally by shouting ‘No!’? What did you expect?
The single most important lesson you can provide your child is in regards to how you mutually resolve your differences of opinion. There one component to this learning that is especially important and is what is called Emotional Intelligence (EQ). In a nutshell, EQ is the capacity to master four areas of emotional development: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Research shows that high levels of emotional intelligence are associated with high levels of success in virtually all areas of life. When it comes to being a happy and successful person, EQ is far more important that IQ. And what’s really exciting is that EQ can be taught. And the earlier it is taught the better, especially in regards to getting along with other people.
Self-awareness is all about what we have already discussed – being able to name your emotional responses and understanding the behaviors that they urge us towards. Self-management is all about the choices we make about how to respond to our emotions we are experiencing. Let’s take an example. Your son is in a rage because his little sister has poured finger paint onto his first baseball glove. He is starting to punch his little sister. When you step in there are several things to do to help your son develop his EQ. First, talk about boundaries. No punching of little sisters. No punching of anyone smaller or weaker than yourself. This is a cognitive block to put in place.
This is where most parenting stops. But you can go further by doing several other things. First, ask your son to express in words how he feels. Ask him to name his feelings and then consciously choose what he wants to do rather than just lashing out. Separate out the feelings about the act and the feelings of love for his little sister. He can be angry about what she has done but not express hate towards her as a person.
You can further expand your son’s EQ by asking him how he thinks his sister feels right now. Ask him to name her feelings – terror, regret, confusion. This is all about the third skill of EQ, learning to identify the feeling of others. When it comes to developing relationship management skills, you can then ask him to ask his little sister why she did what she did. When she says that she was trying to do her big brother a favor by making his glove prettier then it is possible to begin dialogue. You will need to teach each step along the way and lead by example. Gradually however, your child will internalize these lessons and carry them forward into school and indeed into adult life. And, like everyone else with high EQ scores, he or she will be highly successful in life.
Image Credit: flickr.com/photos/22750018@N05
