KID, YOU’RE ALRIGHT

All behavior is communication. Desirable behavior communicates that skills and tools are in place for that behavior. Less desirable or erratic behavior communicates that help is needed to build skills and tools to better navigate. That’s it – at work, at home, with others and with self. It especially applies to kids – who have a lot to learn. This is where dads, as one of a child’s first teachers/coaches, are part of shaping the family emotional climate and building emotional literacy in their kids.

Throwback to FD34, humans use emotions to understand threats and opportunities and emotions underpins most cognitive processes.

Emotions at home impact just about everything, both the good and not so good like excessive concern, guilt, frustration, stress, shame, conflict. This is where the concept of Emotion Coaching has shown to be an effective framework in building that skill and having better awareness of the emotional climate at home.

Emotion Coaching [Article, 2min] is a communication/interaction style/ strategy that helps babies through young adults to self regulate and master their stress management. Emotion coaching has a lot of science supporting it [Article, 4min]. One way to approach this is to use everyday opportunities to talk about and show feelings as well as the situations that bring them on. Another way is to think of the emotional tanks of those around you – something that works in all relationships, and providing unique advantages in team sport[Article, 1min].

When the soundbites drop a “all kids need is love”, it seems that this translates to what science calls warmth and affection. Affection is how fondness is shown to others, both physically and verbally. Warmth can be a little hard to define. I particularly liked this extended perspective from Dr. David Rettew.

”One thing it is probably not, however, is simply a lack of abuse or hostility. In the heart of a child, parental warmth might be the differences being knowing one is loved and feeling one is loved. On a more micro level, warmth can look like a mother who is able to use her enthusiasm to distract a grouchy toddler rather than getting locked into power struggle. For the school-age child, it can be applying humor and empathy to help change behavior rather than shame or ridicule. For the adolescent, it can be an arm around the shoulder when he or she is hurting and everyone knows there is nothing really to say. Warmth is often “the first thing out the window when a parent feels overwhelmed, exhausted, mistreated, or depressed. Yes warmth is related to intrinsic personality traits, but there is little doubt that it also is strongly influenced by one’s environment. Under stress, warmth can be quite difficult to summon.”

Great dads find a way to be warm and affectionate – and their kids appreciate it when they reflect back. And none of this has to be in conflict with masculinity – in fact many masculine traits can create a solid base for nurturing.

This also includes being authoritative as a coach – being able to set clear limits while also maintaining a connection. This can start early in the first year with assertive body language, a stern/unamused facial expression, a clear tone and developing the power of not feeding into negative behaviors.

Of course, everyone will be at different skill levels and tendencies in these areas. Some fathers may have been negatively impacted by their own relations with their caregivers and have some struggle in showing these things. Many men were taught to see help with emotional challenge as weakness. Unfortunately, these men tend to cover depression/relationship struggles with anger, social withdrawal, and compartmentalization – lending to higher risk of depression later in life. This may make it difficult to be an emotion coach when you could use one yourself – but with some awareness, these can be turned around and cycles can be broken, though this may be a difficult journey.

Harvard psychologist Susan David adds ”Research shows that people who suppress emotions have lower-level resilience and emotional health.”How can we change this? We can start, says Dr. David, by letting boys experience their emotions, all of them, without judgment or by offering them solutions. This means helping them learn the crucial lessons that “Emotions aren’t good or bad” and that “their emotions aren’t bigger than they are. They aren’t something to fear.” Say to boys: “I can see that you’re upset,” or ask them, “What are you feeling?” or “What’s going on for you right now?” There doesn’t have to be any grand plan beyond this, she says. “Just show up for them. Get them talking. Show that you want to hear what they’re saying.” And with daughters “Loving fathers who provide praise, support, and unconditional love give their daughters the gift of confidence and high self-esteem. Daughters who have these traits grow into happy, and successful adults.”

Here are the four commitments I’ve made to myself in being warm, affectionate, and using daily life to be an emotion coach.

• Be affectionate every day, physically and verbally.
• Make them laugh every single day.
• When hugging, always be the last one to let go. You never know how long they need it.
• Never go to bed angry.

^—- This goes with the partner too. These four things soften the bad times and make the good time better. Affection also plays a large part in moving past conflict – a good one to have up the sleeve [Article, 4min].

As a personal note, very early on in my first kids’ life I noticed I was in the habit of mostly saying “I Love You” when I put him down for bed at night, as the last thing before bed. I realized that by saying “I love you” with that pattern, I might have been creating a connection between I love you and me leaving. That’s where my commitment to being verbally affectionate kicked in – something I hadn’t really thought a ton about prior.

Lastly, there is a useful distinction to make as we grow our “dad as coach” skills and that’s the difference in teaching vs coaching. In my world, teaching is about effectively giving someone information, while coaching is more about being there with someone with shared information, getting feedback and improving toward a goal. Teaching is often one way. Coaching is relational and shared. Of course the best teachers are the ones that blur the lines of teaching and coaching. In the end, regardless of the terms used, unless the behavior of a human changes, nothing was changed.

So it’s true, they need love – for who they are and not who they are expected to be – and research shows that a parents affection shapes much of their future happiness. Regardless of where each of us are, there is always some work that can be done – either in skill or consistency.

Having someone help kids navigate their emotions and esteem in a social world is part of what buffers the “threat” mindset and fosters the Challenge mindset of Hardiness. Learning to lead with warmth and affection can be challenging, but finding your own commitments to make can help make those daily interactions a priority – and high impact in the long run.

Building Self Control and Self Regulation

Emotions underpin them both – but Is Self Regulation like Self Control?

Self-regulation and self-control seem similar and indeed the two are related, but they are not the same.

Self-control is primarily a social skill for keeping behavior, emotions and impulses in check – within social norms and expectations.

Self-regulation is different in that it’s more of HOW we manage emotions, behavior and body movement when faced with situations that are tough to handle. Good self-regulation enables someone to stay focused and pay attention in these situations. It also includes being able to resist highly emotional reactions to mild as well as upsetting stimuli, to calm yourself down when you get upset, to adjust to a change in expectations, and to handle frustration with less outburst.

Children who can regulate their emotions are better at soothing themselves when they are upset, which means that they experience negative emotions for a shorter period of time – and helps build aspects of resilience. This is part of the power in emotion or affect labeling – it reduces brain activity in circuits that cause over arousal, reducing the magnitude of the overall reaction.

It’s important to note that self-control is actually a social construct – meaning it’s something we do to fit into whatever society around us considers “normal behavior” in various contexts. Self Control is about stopping or preventing various impulses, urges or reactions – in relation to how we pursue goals within a social context. Why do we discourage booger eating? Or nail biting? Some scientists think these natural drives are there to help us expose ourselves to weakened germs – but those things, like spitting, are often found offensive in social contexts – and require self control to change the habit (also part of socialization). Not here to say what’s “good” or “bad”, only that because our brains are wired as social creatures, many of our cues for behavior are dictated by society at large.

It’s useful to be aware of these things because unlike most skills in life – where we can get a teacher or a coach to teach a topic or a sport – the way we learn to navigate social and emotional systems isn’t exactly coached the same way. Dads as the social and emotional coaches can change this.