Emotion Coaching by Preschool Teachers in Jakarta

Abstract

A proper guidance during kindergarten years is required to optimize the development of children’s emotional competence. Emotion coaching is one way to foster children’s emotional growth that will result in emotional competence and better academic achievement. In school settings, teachers will be the caregiver with important role in ensuring children’s socio-emotional development. Yet, little is known on how teachers play the role. This research aims to describe the emotion coaching done by preschool teachers in Jakarta. Gottman’s emotion coaching framework is utilized in the study. Qualitative approach with explorative aim is adopted in this study. Data gathering technique used in this study is individual interview using story vignettes with three female and two male teachers. All participants were chosen to represent gender and school’s status variation. Result of the study shows that participants have done five steps of emotion coaching, but needs optimization on the third and fourth steps. There are issues most notably on the use of vocabulary to label emotion and emotion validation. Lack of knowledge on how to do emotion coaching in the latter steps and teachers’ perception of proper expression of emotions might be the cause of these results. Further elaboration on the topic and exploration in regard to cultural issues are suggested. Keywords: emotion coaching, preschool teachers, emotion, early childhoo