The first step in building social-emotional skills is to help your child understand their own feelings. Self-awareness leads to empathy, which is the ability to recognize and understand how other people feel.

Too often, and unintentionally, parents either dismiss, judge, or criticize their child when they do not like or understand their child’s emotional reactions, such as feelings of jealousy, anger, resentment, or even sadness.

Emotion coaching is a strategy that accepts and validates how a child feels and guides that child to cope with uncomfortable feelings and problem-solve solutions. Developed by John Gottman, expressing and validating difficult emotions become teachable moments that bolster the parent-child relationship. Below are guidelines designed to help you work on these skills with your child.

When a child feels understood, defensiveness decreases, communication improves, and collaborative problem-solving can begin.

Steps To Be An Emotion Coach

1. First, notice how you feel. Take a moment to tune into your emotions before you react to your child’s emotional state.
2. Next, ask your child or help them name how they are feeling. As they get older, their vocabulary should become larger and more sophisticated. For example, angry might be described as impatient, annoyed, agitated, or hostile. Model and help your child to be descriptive. For example, “I’m a little upset,” or “I feel really stressed right now.”

• It’s helpful to identify physical sensations that are internal signals for how we feel. For example, your child might say they have butterflies in their stomach, their chest feels tight, or they have sweaty hands or an upset stomach.
• If possible, help your child identify the cause; what was the situation or person that triggered them to feel and express a particular emotion. For example, “My sister won’t share her candy, and that made me angry.”
• Help your child understand that it is normal to have different emotions at the same time. For example, “I feel happy and scared about going to the birthday party.”
• Accept your child’s statements when they say, “I don’t know how I feel right now,” or “I’m not sure how I feel.”

3. Validate how your child feels. Even if you don’t think there is sufficient cause for your child to feel a certain way, understand that all feelings are acceptable and should not be judged or criticized. Telling a child that there is no reason to feel so angry when they describe a situation at school will only make them feel shame. Feeling understood verifies a person’s experience and sense of self; it increases self-worth, builds trust, deepens connection, and fosters a willingness to communicate rather than shut down. When you give the message that a feeling is unacceptable, the child begins to feel alone and misjudged.
4. Role model and teach empathy. Once a child develops awareness of their own feelings, they can begin to imagine how another person feels. Emotional messages are often nonverbal, such as tone of voice, facial expressions, or gestures. Parents can demonstrate empathic gestures—a gentle hug, hand on the shoulder, or just a soft smile and patience. Also, very young children are sensitive to their parents’ emotional states, and this empathic concern becomes reinforced or discounted through parental responses.

Behavior is what we see, not necessarily a reflection of your child’s experience that is triggering an emotional reaction. Get below the surface and ask yourself what might explain your child’s behavior. Are they tired, stressed, angry, scared, or feeling misunderstood? Be curious and ask questions, but don’t be critical. For example, “I don’t know why you are acting so angry. Can you help me understand what happened?” When a child behaves poorly, parents should be clear that the specific behavior was wrong, not that the child is bad.

Following are some other techniques to teach empathy:

• Active listening rather than rushing to solve the problem, dismiss, or correct your child’s reaction.
• Use I feel statements to reduce conflict. For example, “I feel hurt and upset when you say you hate me because I was only trying to help you finish your homework.” Instead of saying you did, you shouldn’t, you can’t, start by validating your child’s feelings, share how you feel, and ask how you can help.
• Teach perspective-taking, which is the ability to imagine the thoughts and feelings of others. For example, “You look really upset right now. Am I right?”

5. Role model and teach kindness. Related to empathy is the ability to show kindness through actions and words. Demonstrate and create opportunities for your child to practice kindness through charitable giving, volunteering, or acts of service. Note when you see acts of kindness in public, in the media, or even during interactions at home. Compassion, the awareness of another person’s suffering, and self-compassion are lifelong skills that help us accept that we are trying to do our best.

Helping your child develop emotional intelligence is not easy. It requires self-awareness, comfort in talking about feelings, and lots of practice. Parents have a critical role to play in modeling healthy emotional expression and sensitivity towards others. It’s never too early to start.

Practices to Teach Emotional Intelligence

First and foremost, you are a role model for how to talk about feelings, notice, and respond to how other people feel.

1. Discuss how characters feel in books, movies, shows, or songs that generate different emotions.
2. Notice and comment on how other people express emotions in public or during interactions at home.
3. Use feeling charts, mood meters, posters, games, and emotional apps to help your child learn how to recognize and express feelings. Journaling, drawing, and role play are appropriate for older children.

Dr. Grossman is an SKLD board member, Chair of the Countdown to Kindergarten Program, with faculty appointments at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and NYU. She is a family therapist, occupational therapist, and public health expert on family resilience and special education policies and programs. In the next article, Dr. Grossman will guide you through how to help your child manage big feelings and develop relationship skills.

Related Smart Kids Topics

• Social-Emotional Learning: What It Is & Why It Matters