Books, Lectures, and Tools

If the best gift parents can give their children is a healthy partnership, the next best is teaching children appropriate emotional skills. With that in mind, we offer books, CDs and DVDs for parents on how to be "emotion coaches" for their children. Easy to understand and entertaining, these products help parents assess their parenting style, learn skills to guide their children at every age, and discuss the impact of marital discord and divorce on kids' emotional health.

Based on evidence gathered from his studies of families and parents, Dr. Gottman says that when parents offer their children empathy and help them to cope with difficult feelings like anger, sadness, and fear, they build bridges of loyalty and affection. Within this context, emotion-coaching parents will still need to effectively set limits, but misbehavior is no longer the main concern. "Compliance, obedience and responsibility come from a sense of love and connectedness children feel within their families," he says. "In this way, emotional interactions among family members become the foundation for instilling values and raising moral people."

Listen to John Gottman discuss how emotional health affects kids' academic performance in this video.

By popular demand, The Gottman Institute is making available the copy from Dr. John Gottman’s presentation, "Fostering Emotionally Intelligent Children, Families and Communities."  This talk was recently presented to a sell-out crowd of over 1,000 people in Seattle. Click  here for a draft PDF of this talk. 

For additional information on "Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child", please see the resources at the bottom of this page, which are available in several formats: Book, DVD, CD and MP3.