There are libraries worth of books written by so-called “parenting experts”. There’s a plethora of sources online that offer firsthand experiences from parents themselves. And, there are always ways to get in contact with professionals with expert opinions.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way to consolidate all of those sources into one convenient location? Well, luckily for you eager to learn moms and dads out there–now there is.
Dr. Erica Reischer–mother, psychologist, and parenting expert–recently authored a book dedicated to helping parents raise kids who’ll reach their maximum potential! Her book, What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive, hit shelves on August 16 and has since been drawing heaps of attention from the parenting community.
Source: drericar.com
Her incredibly informative book covers a multitude of crucial parenting topics. Of the topics covered, Reischer discusses sleeping tactics, helicopter parenting, positive parenting, and more!
While her book further expands on a number of important themes and topics for parents, today we’ll be focusing on one of the more important topics addressed in her book: empathy. Specifically, how empathy and expressing emotion as a parent helps cultivate emotional development in children.
Through a tactic Resicher calls “emotion parenting”, parents can help kids identify, understand and manage their feelings.
Learn about “emotion parenting” and empathy and how they can help your children manage and understand their feelings! Click next for more!
One example of emotion parenting comes when people are angry. According to Resicher, when angry, people will often follow that feeling into action and, for children, that can mean hitting. Rather than having that reaction, emotion coaching encourages children to learn how to respond to feelings so they’re able to pause and decide what to do about it.
“That’s a very, very hard thing to do,” Reischer said.
Furthermore, Dr. Resicher discovered while composing her newest book that empathy is one of the most important aspects of raising emotionally stable and in-tune children. She claims that as parents we must remember that children have big feelings and experience the world in a different way than adults do.
They might drop their ice cream cone and it’s the worst thing in the world, and we know it’s not,” she said. “[Minimizing] that experience, for a lot of kids, can make them even more upset, because we’re not getting it.”
Rather than saying, “Don’t worry honey, it’s just an ice cream cone,” try “Oh, you’re so disappointed your ice cream cone dropped, you were so looking forward to that.” Showing empathy allows them to acknowledge and recognize their feelings. Not only that but it defuses the situation because the adult is meeting the child where he is, Reischer says.
Clearly empathy and emotion parenting are incredibly potent tools for raising children, and parents owe it to themselves to pick up a copy of Dr. Reischer’s book, What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive for more information and tips and tricks!
This story was first covered by Fox News.
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