Sample A: Cover Page of Thesis, Project, or Dissertation Proposal

Second, emotion-coaching parents see the child‘s negative emotion as an opportunity for
intimacy or teaching. This is in marked contrast to emotion-dismissing parents, who see the
child‘s negative emotion as an unreasonable demand that they fix the world so the child will
never be unhappy, who see the negative emotion as toxic, to be changed as quickly as possible,
and whose major lesson is that their children should minimize, endure, and get over the negative
affective state quickly.
3. The parent helps the child to verbally label the emotions the child is having.
Third, the emotion-coaching parent empathizes with the child‘s emotion, is understanding and
accepting about it, and communicates a genuine understanding of why having this emotion at this
time in this situation makes sense to the parent. In this empathizing, the parent may soothe the
child, calm the child, and use affection. It needs to be emphasized that it is not easy to do this
empathizing when the parent is actually the target of the negative affect. Thus, this part of
emotion coaching may require the parent to be nondefensive.
4. The parent empathizes with or validates the child’s emotion.
Fourth, the parent helps the child to verbally label the emotions that he or she is feeling. This
need not involve standard labels (angry, afraid, sad), but they involve putting the feelings into
words (―You felt that the way the teacher treated you was unfair‖).
5. The parent helps the child to problem solve.
Fifth, the parent helps the child problem solve. In this problem solving, emotion-coaching parents
often set limits (―It‘s OK to be angry, but it‘s not OK to hit your brother‖) and describe
appropriate behavior and consequences for inappropriate behavior. At times the parent will also
help the child decide what they would wish would happen in this situation (goals), and what
might work to accomplish these ends (strategies).
Emotion coaching is embedded in a constellation of parenting variables that involve: (a)
avoid derogating and insulting the child, or using negative trait labels, and (b) using authoritative
(warmth, limit setting, structuring) and responsive parenting practices.
Reference
Gottman, J. M., Katz, L., & Hooven, C. (1997). Meta-emotion: How families communicate
emotionally. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
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