Tips to Support the Emotional Health of Your Child

Introduction

We all want children to grow up as emotionally healthy adults. We know it is essential, and we would like our children to be confident and booming in relationships, at work, and generally in life. By now we all know mental health is very important and it plays a significant role in bringing up a healthy child. But emotional health is becoming a more significant challenge for parents because there are so many pressures on young people today that threaten emotional health: peer pressure and social media; the stress of exams and jobs; financial problems, family break-ups, or simply growing up fast through puberty.

This can sometimes create emotional struggles for children as it does for us when we’re adults! The problem is emotional well-being doesn’t always come naturally to children. Their emotional development hasn’t caught up with their physical maturity, so they often find emotional problems harder to deal with.

If emotional health isn’t given enough attention, it can lead to emotional difficulties later on in life. That’s why emotional wellbeing needs careful nurturing along the way, especially when children are young and going through so many changes.

How can you help?

9 tips to ensure the emotional wellbeing of your child 

Here are some ideas about how you can carry on supporting your child emotionally and promoting healthy emotional health throughout childhood. Let us read on some tips for good mental health.

1. Listen and believe them 

Make sure they know you’ll listen calmly and try not to overreact. It will help if they feel they’ve been heard to and will also help improve mental health. You might want to say something like this: We all get upset sometimes, but we don’t have to let anger grow into a big emotion that hurts us or others. This is an essential step in promoting emotional health.

2. Watch out for emotional bullying

If they’re being emotionally bullied, tell them that emotional bullying is not allowed and it’s essential to speak out. You can ask them what emotional bullying looks like or how a young person might calmly deal with emotional bullying. For example, It’s OK for you to say no when asked something you don’t feel comfortable with at school. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. We all have the right to feel OK about things we do and say – just because someone says something doesn’t mean that you have to agree with it or do it!

3) Encourage emotional wellbeing

Discuss emotional health and emotional wellbeing with them. Some ways of keeping healthy emotional health might be letting off steam, using self-soothing techniques, breathing slowly, or getting some fresh air. With emotional bullying, young people can get their confidence back through doing things that make them feel good about themselves. Remember, emotional bullying is not OK, so let them know that they should come to you for support if it happens again.

4) Let them know they’re not alone

If they’re talking about feeling anxious or depressed, reassure your child that many other young people feel like this too, but there are lots of things they can try to deal with these feelings. If they’ve had counselling or therapy in the past, encourage them to continue this.

5) Encourage your child to do the things they love

If you know of things they enjoy doing, perhaps acting, dancing, or singing that boosts their emotional health make sure they do these as much as possible. If it’s a physical activity like a sport that gives them a real emotional boost, they keep doing this.

6) Make time for emotional conversations 

As parents, we naturally focus on school and other academic successes but emotional intelligence is as important as our children hitting those key milestones. Remember to take time out from everyday life to talk about how your child feels at different times of stress and upset. When something has happened that makes them feel unhappy, show you are willing to listen.

7) Praise emotional intelligence

As well as celebrating academic achievements, it’s also important to recognise emotional intelligence, so your child feels good about how they deal with difficult situations. This could include keeping calm when a younger sibling is naughty or managing their emotions in public. By praising emotional intelligence, they’ll feel confident to embrace the challenges of life and overcome them too. This will also promote healthy emotional health in kids.

8) Teach emotional vocabulary

You can boost emotional intelligence by taking time out together at home to teach new words that will help explain your child’s feelings adequately. For example, if they have been upset, saying simple things like I’m so sad today, I’m feeling down, etc, instead of just saying I’m a bit annoyed, can make a difference to emotional intelligence.

9) Talk about emotional consequences

Finally, talking about emotional consequences is an excellent way of teaching emotional intelligence in kids. This will help them see that emotional intelligence is a valuable skill for decision-making and avoiding life difficulties.

Conclusion

It is essential to promote emotional health in children because it will help them lead emotionally intelligent lives. An emotionally healthy child tends to have emotional awareness, management, and expression. It will help the kids overcome many health issues as well. You can promote emotional health in children by encouraging emotional talk, emotional reasoning, emotional recognition, emotional consequences, etc.

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