name it, tame it an introduction to emotion coaching deborah stanton, will calver,

Name It, Tame ItAn introduction to emotion coaching

Deborah Stanton, Will Calver,

Each local authority in England must make arrangements to promote co-operation between— .

(a) the authority;

(b) each of the authority’s relevant partners; and .

(c) such other persons or bodies as the authority consider appropriate, being persons or bodies of any nature who exercise functions or are engaged in activities in relation to children in the authority’s area.

The arrangements are to be made with a view to improving the well-being of children in the authority’s area so far as relating to— .

(a) physical and mental health and emotional well-being;

(b) protection from harm and neglect;

(c) education, training and recreation;

(d) the contribution made by them to society;

(e) social and economic well-being;

Why are we talking about enhancing the emotional well-being of LAC and care leavers today?Children Act 2004

• That every young person looked after by their Local Authority feels supported with their emotions

• That every young person looked after by their Local Authority is asked if they feel supported with their emotions (impact)

• That all services within a Local Authority which support LAC/Care Leavers consider training their staff to adopt emotion coaching as a new skill

What do we want to achieve from emotion coaching?

I feel unsupported

with my emotions

I feel supported with my emotions

and am able to name them

and know that they are normal

I am working on strategies

to manage my emotion

I use strategies to manage my emotions

How will we know if we are making progress?

The structure of PEPs could be slightly amended to capture a young person’s journey:

What is emotion coaching?• A practice for supporting people to manage their emotions through

communication

Who can learn it?• Anyone can learn to support the emotions of others, most adults do it

automatically with babies

Why are we targeting Looked After Children and Care Leavers with Emotion Coaching?• Because 63% of young people are taken into care because of abuse, and will

be experiencing strong emotions• Arguably anyone removed from their parents may be experiencing separation

anxiety• The majority of young people taken from their parents will be feeling separation

anxiety

Why should colleagues in Local Authorities be supporting the emotions of learners?• Because a learner experiencing strong emotions may not be able to focus upon

their education. By helping them to manage their emotions you will be enhancing their achievement

• Emotion is a complex, subjective experience accompanied by biological and behavioural changes.

• Emotion involves feeling, thinking, activation of the nervous system, physiological changes, and behavioural changes such as facial expressions.

What is emotion…….

What are the objectives for emotion coaching?

1. To support staff to feel confident to identify the emotions that young people experience and enable them to label it

2. For staff to know the difference between identifying emotions and asking how they feel

3. For staff to know how they respond to young people’s emotions

4. For staff to co-regulate with young people5. For staff to support and guide young people to manage their

emotions6. For staff to develop their own meta emotion awareness7. For staff to support young people to develop their own meta

emotion awareness

For young people to self-regulate their emotions

Where did Emotion Coaching come from?

• Developed in the US by psychologist John Gottman (1997)

• Based on research into what parents of happy, resilient and well-adjusted young people actually do

• Recognises the scientific evidence that what adults do shapes and strengthens brain development in children

• Found that the brain is shaped by social experience and strengthened by repetition

© Kate Cairns Associates

Emotion coaching is: helping young people to: identify their emotions; know that they are normal and create strategies to manage their emotions

Emotion coaching is not: discussing the circumstances where emotions may have come from or addressing the underlying causes of emotions

What happens to a person’s body when they experience a strong emotion?

• Heart rate increase• Blood pressures raises• Sweating increases• Adrenaline is released into the body• Breathing speeds up• Blood is moved away from the stomach to major

muscles• Legs and hands may shake in preparation for fight

or flight• May feel like vomiting or going to the toilet• Sympathetic Nervous System is engaged• Could you focus on your education in

fight or flight?

If a child experiences regular abuse before being taken into care, what types of emotions could be triggered on a daily basis?

• Shame

• Fear

• Anger

• Mistrust

• Rage

• Afraid

• Panic

• Hate

Empathy

Working in small groups, using the flip chart pad and pens on your table write down a meaning of empathy.

In your groups, now write down an example of how empathy works in conversation

Understanding empathy

The ability to share someone else’s feelings or experience by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation.

http://dictionary.cambridge

http://dictionary.cambridge/

Understanding empathy

For Carl Rogers empathy is

‘To sense the clients personal world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the “as if” quality – this is empathy…(1957:99)

Counsellors practising Empathy need to ‘get into the shoes of their client’ or ‘under their skin’ (Nelson Jones 1995: 38) in order to try and understand the clients subjective world.

Hough 2008

Why is empathy important in emotion coaching?

Responses to Behaviour

Four main styles of adult response to a young person’s behaviour:

• Disapproving

• Dismissing

• Laissez faire

• Emotion coaching

Adapted from Kate Cairns Associates 2013

Disapproving Style:

• Disapproves of negative and positive emotions

• Lacks empathy

• Discipline, reprimand or punish the behaviour

• Focuses on the behaviour rather than the emotions driving the behaviour

• May regard negative emotions as manipulation

• Often motivated by need to control and regain power, or to ‘toughen up

the young person’ – bullying????

- Adapted from Kate Cairns Associates 2013

Dismissing Style:

• Wants to make the young person feel better but is uncomfortable with

negative emotions

• Views negative emotions as toxic – to be ‘got over’ quickly

• Thinks paying attention to such emotions makes them worse

• Tries to stop emotions by reducing or minimising them – making light of

their significance (that’s life, you’ll be fine’)

• Focuses on getting rid of the emotion with logic or distraction rather than

understanding the feelings


Disapproving and dismissing style

The actual message the young person is hearing is……….

‘I cant trust my own feelings’

Leading to the young person lacking capacity to make decisions

Leading to the young person suppressing natural emotions

Can generate more negative feelings in the young person – resentment,

shame, anger

The young person is not given the opportunities to experience emotions

and deal with them effectively , so could grow up unprepared for life's

challenges

Laissez Faire style

• The young person receives no guidance from the adult on how to manage

their feelings

• Once the adult is in laissez faire, the behaviour will escalate

• Can occur when the adult is overwhelmed by the power of emotions

driving the young person (adult may feel afraid, distressed or helpless)

• Despite the empathy of the adult, the young person experiences no safe

containment of their emotions


Emotion Coaching style

High Empathy – High Guidance

• Identify the emotion

• Acknowledge the emotion as normal

• Empathise with the emotion

• Name it, tame it!

• Setting limits on behaviour

• Builds relationships

• Problem solving with the young person to create strategies to

ACTIVITY - Response to behaviour


High Empathy

Low Guidance

Low Empathy

High Guidance



High Empathy

Low Guidance

Low Empathy

High Guidance

Emotion coaching style

Disapproving style

Dismissing style Laissez-faire style

ACTIVITY - Response to behaviour Task- place the statements in the relevant quadrant in response to the following statement:

A young person is anxious, scared of attending an apprenticeship interview


High Empathy

Low Guidance

Low Empathy

High Guidance

Emotion coaching styleDisapproving style



Task- place the statements in the relevant quadrant in response to the following statement:

A young person is anxious, scared of attending an apprenticeship interview


High Empathy

Low Guidance

Low Empathy

High Guidance

Disapproving style Emotion coaching style


Tell the young person that being anxious is being silly and they are wasting peoples time and encourage them to attend

Tell the young person it will be fine, you’ve done loads of interviews, everyone gets nervous

Discuss their emotions and reassure them they will be fine

Encourage the young person to talk about their feelings and then implement strategies to enable them to manage their emotions

Offer the young person a treat if they attend the interview

Identify the feelings, validate them and discuss coping strategies

Response Styles

ACTIVITY 1Reflecting on the information covered so far, please reconsider the answers you gave in column A. Identify anything you would change in column B.

Please complete the questionnaire sheet individually

Emotion coaching involves…

… a practical three-step approach to dealing with behaviour in the moment

Step 1– Recognising, empathising, validating the feelings and labelling them

Step 2– Setting limits on behaviour

Step 3– Problem-solving with the young person


Activity

Working in small groups, identify a range of response statements/phrases that you might use when working with young people in a highly emotional state.

For example -

‘I can see that you are very angry by what has happened’

http://dictionary.cambridge.org retrieved 27/1/2014 9.30am

Hough M 2010 Counselling Skills and Theory Hodder Education UK

Kate Cairns Associates 2013 www.kca.org

http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/attachment01.htm

Retrieved – 17th February 1.15pm

Nelson Jones 1995 from Hough M 2010

Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) http://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

Retrieved – 31st January 2015 14.25pm

References

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

http://www.kca.org/



http://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

name it, tame it an introduction to emotion coaching deborah stanton, will calver,

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