COACHING TIP: COOLING OFF

by Dr. Carol Renaud Gaffney
Copyright Carol R. Gaffney, Ph.D. 1996


So often when we are emotionally compromised (angry or totally at the end of our ropes) we make statements about consequences that just don't make sense, that we feel bad about later, and that eventually we will have to retract. This is when we can yell, curse or ground them for the rest of their lives.

Being able to stay in an intellectual state, to think about consequences would be ideal.

I remember a parent about 15 years ago who was telling a story about his kids playing in the bathroom. Something happened that resulted in water gushing out of the faucet over everything. The kids came rushing out and he went rushing in as the water in the Bath room was rising. He said that muttered " When I get my hands on those kids, I'm going to wring their necks".

Fortunately, for all of them father had to attend to the water before he attended to the kids. The sink took about 30 min. to fix. By then, he relayed, he had time to cool off (literally and figuratively) and was able to talk to the kids reasonably about what had happened. This dad spoke highly of the lesson he learned about putting time between "The Incident and The Response". Maybe this is a case in which we can learn from someone else's success.