ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon research relating to emotion coaching and explains the importance of acknowledging and validating feelings. It shares useful phrases to use with children, examples and case studies of how to use an emotion coaching approach in practice and share the problem-solving technique for conflict resolution. When dealing with children's emotions, how we respond, as the adult, will either make things worse and escalate the issue or it will defuse the situation and de-escalate matters. Problems will always get worse when the adult makes accusations or blames someone, uses intense body language and is unable to remain calm or shouts and raises their voice. Emotion coaching and problem solving are powerful strategies to use and they work effectively because they validate everyone's feelings and accept all emotions whilst at the same time recognising our natural ways of responding and providing a calming way out.
