Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) / quote 66 of 91
Handling emotions predicts a child's happiness
Parents face many issues on a daily basis in the raising of kids, but not all of them affect how their children turn out. There is one that does. How you deal with the emotional lives of your children—your ability to detect, react to, promote, and provide instruction about emotional regulation—has the greatest predictive power over your baby’s future happiness. Fifty years of research, from Diana Baumrind and Haim Ginott to Lynn Katz and John Gottman, have come to this conclusion. That’s why your child’s emotional life takes the central role, the chicken, in our metaphor. You won’t get any of the other benefits of the recipe unless you have placed the meat of the matter squarely in the center of your parenting behavior. The critical issue is your behavior when your children’s emotions become intense (Gottman would say “hot”) enough to push you out of your comfort zone. Here are the six spices that go into this parental dry rub: • a demanding but warm parenting style • comfort with your own emotions • tracking your child’s emotions • verbalizing emotions • running toward emotions • two tons of empathy