Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by JOHN GOTTMAN

emotions from the outside world. We found that women in our studies were much freer at expressing their feelings in words, facial expressions, and body language. Men were more likely to hold back, cover up, and discount their feelings.
    One theory holds that men do this because they are socialized for toughness and wary of the consequences of “losing control.” Indeed, some men take on such a distorted sense of masculine defensiveness that they shut themselves off completely from any awareness of emotional experience. I believe that such extreme cases represent a small percentage of the male population—perhaps less than 10 percent.
    Although reluctance to face emotion has important implications for men’s family relationships, it does not disqualify men from being good Emotion Coaches. Research shows that most men have what it takes on the inside: They are internally aware of their feelings; they have the ability to recognize and respond to their children’s emotions; they are capable of empathy. For most men, becoming emotionally aware is not a matter of picking up new skills; it is a matter of granting themselves permission to experience what’s already there.
WHEN PARENTS FEEL OUT OF CONTROL
    Permission to feel may also be an issue for parents who are afraid of losing control of negative emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear. Such parents avoid acknowledging their anger, in particular, for fear that things will only get out of hand. They may be afraid of alienating their children or that their children might copy their emotional style, spinning out of control themselves. Such parents may also fear hurting their children physically or psychologically.
    In our studies, parents who felt out of control with an emotion generally showed one or more of the following characteristics:
• They have the emotion (anger, sadness, or fear) frequently.
• They believe they feel it too intensely.
• They have trouble calming down after experiencing intense feelings.
• They become disorganized and have trouble functioning when they have the emotion.
• They hate the way they behave when they are having the emotion.
• They are always on guard against the feeling.
• They find themselves acting neutral (calm, understanding, sympathetic), but it’s only an act.
• They believe the feeling is destructive and even immoral.
• They feel they need help with the emotion.
    Such moms and dads may try to compensate for their fear of losing control by being “super-parents,” hiding their emotions from their children. (These same parents may display a great deal of anger toward their spouses, however—feelings that their children are likely to witness.) By trying to conceal their anger, such parents often ignore or dismiss emotional moments with their kids. The irony is that by hiding their emotions, these parents may be raising youngsters who are even less capable of handling negative emotions than they would have been if their parents had learned to let their feelings show in a nonabusive way. That’s because the kids grow up emotionally distant from their parents. Also, the children have one less role model to teach them how to handle difficult emotions effectively.
    One example is Sophie, a woman I met through our parenting groups. Raised by alcoholic parents, she suffered the low self-esteem common to people in that circumstance. Deeply religious, Sophie came to believe that the way to rise above her upbringing and become a good parent was through a kind of martyrdom and unbridled kindness. Constant self-denial often left her struggling against feelings of resentment and frustration, however. She tried to quash these emotions whenever they came up, chiding herself for being selfish. But she could never eradicate the “selfish” feelings completely. Under stress, she sometimes “flew off the handle,” becoming uncharacteristically harsh toward her kids, meting out irrational punishments. “I knew my tantrums were