Introduction

“As parents, we mostly get stressed when our children behave in a way that differs from our expectations,” This was a comment made by a participant in one of my Parent Coaching Teleclasses, entitled: Parents: Don’t Worry – be Happy!

Indeed. It is surprising that we go on having the expectations we do as parents, when our little darlings so often depart from them. Most parents want the best for their children, which, presumably includes seeing those children grow up free from guilt, shame and resentment. So when they do thwart our expectations, why do we let ourselves react with self-defeating emotions (anger – how could they?, anxiety – how will they turn out? Guilt – how could I let them turn out his way?) and possibly self-defeating behaviour: poor parenting skills of losing our cool, blaming and criticising?

The decision to base a series of parent coaching teleclasses on cognitive-behavioural coaching (Neenan & Palmer 2001) arose out of asking questions such as:

• What would it take for us to pause in that moment and re-focus on the longer-term aim of raising emotionally healthy children, instead of giving in to the “natural” urge to let rip from the point of view of our unexamined negative emotions?
• Even if we don’t outwardly behave badly, what would it be worth to us to handle the situation from a position of reasonable concern instead of suppressed anger?

In relation to the second question, there is still some dispute as to whether suppressed anger contributes as much to coronary heart disease as outwardly-expressed hostility is thought to (e.g. Seigman, 1994, Spielberger et al 1985). Nonetheless, any parent knows it feels uncomfortable and slightly shocking to find ourselves harbouring strong negative emotions in relation to our children’s behaviour. On the first question, we can see that parents have a potent mix of challenge and motivation. Our own children get in really close. They easily elicit those automatic negative thoughts stemming from our underlying negative Core Beliefs about ourselves, others or the world (Neenan & Dryden, 2002). That is the challenge. The motivation is that most parents would agree they have a strong interest in not subjecting the children to harsh, critical outbursts.

Much research has emerged in the last 10 years on the importance of emotional intelligence in children (Goleman, 1995). An example of findings on the limits of traditional IQ as a predictor of success in life is quoted by Cary Cherniss in a paper published on the website for the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Cherniss cites the Sommerville study, “a 40 year longitudinal investigation of 450 boys who grew up in Sommerville, Massachusetts. Two-thirds of the boys were from welfare families, and one-third had IQ’s below 90. However, IQ had little relation to how well they did at work or in the rest of their lives. What made the biggest difference was childhood abilities such as being able to handle frustration, control emotions, and get along with other people.” Cherniss 2000).

Examples such as this can motivate us to find an interest in not passing on to our children that faulty habit of thinking that there is a causal link between someone else’s behaviour and our own emotions.

The fundamental Parent Coaching Tool

The children provide the trigger for our negative outbursts or implosions. Yet – I propose to my parent coaching clients – the single most significant factor in how stressed we get might be inside our heads. Of course, parents come to coaching for reasons other than controlling our own “tantrums”. Clients may be striving to make their best possible decisions about education, childcare, returning to work. They may be seeking to regain the balance in their lives, or daring to dream their own dreams about life ahead in the context of also being a parent. However, much of the struggle to find the “energy” and “space” needed to function well as a creative, resourceful parent depends on cutting down our irritations and exasperation!

So, a parent coach needs the usual raft of tools for goal-setting, such as John Whitmore’s GROW model (Whitmore, 2002) and tools for finding balance such as the Wheel of Life (Whitworth et al 1998). Alongside these, and underpinning them whenever a client needs help in changing entrenched habits, we can offer the well-established ABC (or ABCDE) model, put forward 50 years ago by Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of rational emotive-behaviour therapy (e.g. Ellis 1994).

A = Activating event – e.g. toddler won’t eat food 
B = distress-producing Beliefs - 'I’ve gone to all this trouble to prepare these fiddly pureed vegetables and this is what happens! She’ll never eat anything! Why do I bother? It's all a waste of time.' 
C = Consequences: emotion - anger and despair; behaviour – agitation, possibly snatching the food away, or over-emphasis on trying to persuade the child to eat, or tense resignation.
D = self-Disputing - 'If I want to encourage Molly to eat, it needs to be a pleasant and relaxed time for her. Besides, if I think I’ve worked hard cooking this, why do I want to make myself more tired with all this tension? This may be disappointing but things could be a whole lot worse and I just need to put up with it while we go through this particular phase of parenting”.
E = Effective reduction in anger and despair which enables the parent to focus on the child’s needs and interests and her investment in the long-term relationship, rather than her passing irritation. 

Through a process of Socratic questioning, the experienced coach helps the client uncover their specific triggers (or Activating events), the associated emotions and behaviour (Consequences) and finally home in on the view they are taking of the situation (Beliefs). This last factor is the focus of change as it will lead to a change in emotions and behaviour, of the parent and – most likely – the child too. (Neenan & Dryden 2002)

From a stress management perspective, if, as parents, we can manage the more absolute or over-generalised versions of our negative thoughts, we can take control of the emotions driving the stress response and save it for those occasions which are truly life-threatening, rather than mere hassles! If we let our thoughts spiral us into a state of fight or flight while, for example, trying to get our precious child to consume her broccoli, our racing hormones cannot possibly help the situation and actually undermine both our ‘performance’ and our relationship.

Conclusion

Parent Coaching is an area of work with potentially far-reaching results. It offers, as a minimum, to help parents find greater wellbeing, flexibility and confidence in their day-to-day role. Beyond that, it has the potential to offer hope to the next generation through the opportunity to break unhelpful habits of thinking that otherwise appear to be passed on from parent to child (e.g. Miller, 1983). If we can change the way we think and react, our children could be freer too from the idea that someone else causes our emotions. Now, whenever I loose my serene cool with my children (and of course I still do), I make a point of apologising sincerely and taking responsibility for my reaction: “I’m sorry I shouted at you. I was feeling tired hearing all those questions while I was trying to speak on the phone. Still, it’s not good of me to shout at you anyway.” We can follow this with a request for the child to be quieter next time, but the faulty causal link is not made: “you act naughty -> I shout”. Rather, “you act a certain way, I let myself get worked up, I shout”.

It is a relief to find that the strong negative emotions seem to fall away as one becomes more aware of one’s internal thinking habits. That change coupled with resisting the temptation to suggest to the children that they are “responsible” for our emotions does, I believe, lead to a more honest, compassionate relationship and more emotionally intelligent children.

© Jennifer Liston-Smith and ISMA UK

References

Cherniss, C. (2000). Emotional Intelligence: What it is and Why it Matters. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, New Orleans, LA, April 15, 2000

Ellis, A. (1994) Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, revised and updated. New York: Birch Lane Press. 

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

Miller, A. (1983). For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

Neenan, M., and Dryden, W. (2002) Life Coaching: A Cognitive-Behavioural Approach. East Sussex: Brunner Routledge.

Neenan, M. and Palmer, S. (2001). Cognitive Behavioural Coaching. Stress News, Vol.13 No3.

Siegman, A.W.(1994). In A.W. Siegman, & T.W. Smith (Eds.), Anger, Hostility, and the Heart (pp. 1-22, 173-198). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Spielberger, C.D., Johnbson, E.H., Russel, S.F., Crane, R.J., Jacobs, G.A., & Worden, T.J.(1985). The experience and expression of anger: Construction and validation of an anger expression scale. In M. Cheney & R. Rosenman (Eds.), Anger and hostility in cardiovascular and behavioral disorders. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Whitmore, J (2002) Coaching For Performance: Growing People, Performance and Purpose: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Ltd

Whitworth, L., House, H., Sandahl, P., Kimsey-House, H. (1998). Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life. California: Davies-Black Publishing.