– Customer review on 13/01/2007

You can find a lot of books about parenting, but many of them are just pop psychology, the solitary opinion of the author.
Gottman is definitely not one of them. He is known as one of the leading psychologists in the area of family and marriage psychology. This book presents the essence of his research findings about raising emotionally intelligent children.
His advise is surprisingly easy and is based on a 5 step model:
1. Be aware of your childs emotion
2. See your childs emotions as an opportunity to be close together
3. Actively listen to your child and validate the feelings
4. Help your child to verbalize his feelings
5. Help your child solve problems, while setting clear limits

Gottman clearly explains how you can implement this 5-step-model in daily life and what to do when problems arise. His real life examples make reading really fun.
All in all, an excellent parenting book! As a supplement, I can also recommend the book by M. Seligman: "The optimistic child"

– Customer review on 19/05/2009

This is a very important book!
It has a very clear step by step guideline on how to develop emotionally intelligence.
its fun to read and has lots of everyday examples of how to carry this through.

As a working psychologist, emotionally intelligence is one of the main focuses of working with my clients because its poorly valued in many cultures, yet it is what makes a difference in every relationship whether it be business, work, play or the more intimate relationships you find in couples and family living.

And its starts with how we parent our children!
One of the most important jobs on the planet yet the most undervalued and poorly paid.

Pauline McAuley
Senior Psychologist