Tuning in to Kids: A Parenting Program Targeting Preschool Children’s Emotional Competence

Monday, April 14. 6:00pm-7:30pm. Rainier Room.

Description

The foundations for becoming a compassionate human being lie in the development of social and emotional competence in childhood. Skills in understanding emotions, using them appropriately in relationships, and regulating their intensity and expression are key skills children need to equip them well for life. While preschools and schools are increasingly targeting social and emotional competence in the curriculum, family and parent interventions have been lagging in their attention to this area – with few if any published reports of parent-focused programs that help children learn emotional competence. Instead most parenting programs use reinforcement or punishment strategies to help parents respond to their children’s emotions and behaviors. Tuning in to Kids is an innovative new program that helps parents teach their children emotional competence through ‘emotion coaching’ – where parents tune in to their children’s emotional experience and teach them about feelings and their expression. The program explores how family of origin experiences can influence parents’ attitudes and responses to emotions.

Presenter Bio 

Sophie Havighurst, PhD, University of Melbourne

Dr. Sophie Havighurst is a child clinical psychologist and lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Australia. She completed her degree in clinical psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand before moving to Australia in 1999 to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne, examining how parenting around emotions was related to preschool children’s emotional competence, social skills and behavioral functioning. Upon moving to Melbourne, Sophie began working with Ann Harley, a parent educator with 25 years experience in the field. They were both interested in developing a program that focused on parents’ responses to children’s emotions, rather than altering parents’ reactions to children’s positive or negative behaviors – the goal of most parenting programs. They drew on research from Dr. John Gottman and colleagues, which examined emotional communication in families, as well as research looking at the development of children’s emotional competence. This resulted in the Tuning in to Kids program – which teaches parents to emotion-coach their children. Dr. Havighurst is the Principal Investigator on the Tuning in to Kids research program. The program is being evaluated as a primary prevention program with preschool children, as an early intervention (with preschool and school-aged children with behavior problems), and as a program helping children in the transition to high school (Tuning in to Teens). Sophie supervises a number of research students on these studies, teaches child and adolescent mental health practitioners, and works at the Children’s Court Clinic and in private practice.