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To be a mirror for your child requires you to spend time with him, taking pleasure and delight in him, accepting the range of his emotions, both negative and positive, and respecting and allowing his attempts to initiate and be separate. Being sensitive to a child’s emotions and behaviours in a playful, accepting way is known as attunement. Muir, Lojkasek and Cohen describe this process as ‘watch, wait and wonder’ for toddlers and young children, and Gottman as ‘emotion coaching’ for older children. I have found their work incredibly useful in helping children, and will briefly outline both approaches.

The ‘watch, wait and wonder’ approach

‘Watch, wait and wonder’ builds the relationship between you and your child, helps them feel secure, and teaches them about emotions and relationships. It is also a reminder for us to slow down and simply appreciate the gift and glorious uncertainty of childhood.

Watch

Becoming attuned to your child requires that you watch her calmly and attentively. This may seem obvious, but can be surprisingly difficult when our minds are full of our own concerns, duties or anxieties. Also, a child’s annoying behaviour can irritate us and make us focus on ourselves (‘I’m feeling so angry’) rather than on her (‘I wonder why my child is so angry?’). It is a skill to be able to calm and contain ourselves so we can focus on our child.

Consider setting aside a regular time (perhaps fifteen to thirty minutes a day) to wholly focus on your child and to let them lead you. When your child is a baby or toddler, this would take the form of you getting down on the floor and simply responding to their lead. With older children, it is done in various ways from talking to playing.

Common to either approach is that we don’t initiate, tell or show them what to do. Instead we let them lead the play or conversation, and we try to be reflective and supportive of their endeavours whatever they are. We don’t tell them what to do or when they are doing something wrong, rather we listen and attempt to understand or imagine what it is like for them. Some parents find this supporting very easy and can tolerate their child doing their own thing even if it means watching them make mistakes. Other parents find it incredibly difficult to allow their child to initiate without stepping in and saving them from making errors.

If you are in the habit of taking the lead, the first time that you step back and simply watch and support them, your child may feel uncomfortable and start to do things to try to get you to take on the ‘saving’ role again. They may become anxious, or they may become angry, or they may try to provoke you to discipline them. Try to resist this urge (unless they are doing something unsafe).

Don’t make suggestions or give hints, simply say, ‘I’m just really interested in what you want to do/play/say’, and keep gently but firmly repeating it in a calm way. Eventually they will take the risk of initiating in their relationship with you. And if they do initiate in unhelpful ways such as silliness or control, in your mind celebrate that they are at least initiating – annoying initiation is a much better teacher and self-esteem builder than calm subservience.

Wait

This is the next step in improving our attunement. When our child’s behaviour concerns us, our first response is usually to react immediately to correct it. By waiting, even if only for a few seconds, it gives us time to consider our response first. A classic emotion management technique is to ‘count to ten’ before you respond.

Waiting also gives our child the chance to initiate a course of action rather than relying on a parent for guidance, which supports the development of self-esteem and separateness. For growth and learning, it is better that children are given the space to make mistakes (within reasonable boundaries), than to be given too little room to take a chance.

Wonder

What a privilege it is for us to watch our children grow. And isn’t it amazing that the more we know, the more there is to know. We can’t know exactly what is going on in their minds. There is no crystal ball, and there are no certain answers.

But we can wonder.

We can reflect on what is happening for them; we can use our own empathy to put ourselves in their shoes. Our attempts to understand our children help them to feel thought of (and more securely attached) – they know they are ‘on our minds’. Our wonderings, if expressed gently, can also help our children understand themselves, and to learn that not everything can be perfectly understood or every problem solved. This is especially needed in the teenage years when many of their difficulties are quite complex, and at times the only way to resolve a problem is to grieve and accept the insolubility of it – this takes great emotional strength.

The emotion-coaching approach

As we have seen, one of our most important roles is to help our child become aware of their emotions and how to manage them. John Gottman’s research suggests that parents who get involved in the emotional life of their children have more resilient children and teenagers. He coined the term ‘emotion coaches’ to describe parents who allow their children to express negative emotions and then help them learn to deal with these emotions. Underlying his approach is the idea that all emotions are okay and need to be expressed and tolerated, but not all behaviours are okay. Through research he identified parents who, though warm and positive people, were unable to effectively teach their children emotional intelligence. Broadly they fell into three groups:

1 Dismissing parents, who trivialised or struggled to acknowledge their children’s negative emotions;

2 Disapproving parents, who punished or reprimanded their children when they displayed negative emotions; or

3 Laissez-faire parents, who accepted and empathised with their children’s negative emotions, but were unable to offer guidance or set limits on their behaviour.

Let’s look at an example. Six-year-old Harry repeatedly wanders into the lounge room and says, ‘I can’t get to sleep.’ He is clearly upset.

A dismissing parent might tell Harry that his reluctance is ‘silly’, that he has nothing to worry about, and may try to distract him with a funny story or by reading a book. In this case the emotion is not accepted as okay, but dismissed as if it didn’t exist, and thus the parent is unable to coach Harry about how to deal with it.

A disapproving parent might tell Harry that they are sick of his behaviour, and may even threaten to punish him if he keeps it up. In this case the emotion is not only actively disapproved of as if it shouldn’t exist, but the child is criticised and shamed for having it in the first place.

A laissez-faire parent might tell Harry that they understand his desire to stay up, but then would not know what to do. They might make a deal with him: ‘Ten more minutes of TV, and then off to bed.’ Here the emotion is acknowledged as acceptable and okay, but Harry does not learn how to understand and deal with it.

An emotion-coaching parent would begin by first accepting and then empathising with Harry’s feelings (‘Oh, sweetie. I can see you’re upset about not being able to get to sleep’) and then working with him to find a strategy to solve the problem.

Such emotion coaching is generally done in five steps:

1First reflect on what the child is feeling and why. Is it anxiety about being alone? Fear of nightmares? Anger and frustration at missing out on being with his parents? A physical problem (eczema itchiness, fever etc.)?

2On recognising the emotion, accept that like all emotions it is okay to feel that way, and see it as an opportunity for intimacy and learning.

3Listen to the child’s feelings, and let him know it is okay to feel that way perhaps by giving examples of times you have felt the same way (e.g. ‘I used to get really angry when I wasn’t allowed to stay up and watch my favourite show’).

4Support the child to find the words to label the emotion he is having, such as using the word ‘worry’ about being alone, or ‘angry’ about missing out.

5Explore with the child strategies to solve the problem (don’t tell him what to do), but at the same time set limits around what behaviours are okay and what behaviours are not okay. For example, you might say, ‘It’s hard to fall asleep sometimes. What could you do to help you slow down your mind and relax? (Not ‘Go back to bed honey and count backwards from 100’ or ‘Breathe in and out slowly’.) Setting limits is important, too: ‘Well, you can’t stay up and watch TV – that’s not an option. But how you try to fall asleep in bed is up to you.’

The emotion-coaching parent:

1 Accepts the child’s emotions (though does not give permission for unacceptable behaviour – acceptance of the emotion is not permission for the behaviour)

2 Lets the child know they are understood, and in doing so helps the child understand themselves

3 Provides limits and explores strategies to help the child discover that their emotions can be understood, and their problems can be solved.