Who needs Dads?

In his Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child, John Gottman describes “Emotion Coaching” in parenting. This involves involves acknowledging a child’s negative emotions, using those moments of negative emotion as an opportunity to teach and engage the child, listening, helping the child put labels on his feelings, and setting parameters to help the child solve the problem that produced the negative emotions (44-45). Instead of ignoring or condemning a child’s emotions, “Emotion Coaches” help children learn to work through sadness, anger, regret, etc.

Emotion Coaching parenting is not indulgent parenting. On the contrary, the intimacy cultivated by emotion coaching makes discipline more effective:  “when you and your children are emotionally close, you are even more invested in their lives and can therefore assert a stronger influence. You’re in a position to be tough when toughness is called for. When you see your children making mistakes or slacking off, you call them on it. You’re not afraid to set limits. You’re not afraid to tell them when they’ve disappointed you, when you know they can do better. And because you have an emotional bond with your children, your words matter. They care about what you think and they don’t want to displease you.” 

Dads are critical, Gottman has found: “Our studies found that when dads adopt an Emotion-Coaching style of parenting, it has an extremely positive impact on their children’s emotional development. When fathers are aware of their kids’ feelings and try to help them solve problems, children do better in school and in relationships with others. In contrast, an emotionally distant dad—one who is harsh, critical, or dismissing of his children’s emotions—can have a deeply negative impact. His kids are more likely to do poorly in school, fight more with friends, and have poor health.” He adds that Moms are important too, but “our studies indicate that a father’s influence can be much more extreme, whether that effect is good or bad.”

This is a worrying finding “at a time when an alarming 28 percent of American children are growing up in mother-only households.” At the same time, it’s not true that “any father is better than no father. An emotionally present dad can be a tremendous benefit in a child’s life, but a cold and cruel father can do great harm” (48-49).