How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children

Parents are the most important and influential teachers that children will ever have.  Everything that we do or don’t, teaches them how to be and how to live.  What we say or don’t say to them influences their image of the world.  How we deal with conflict teaches them how to relate to others.  Parents’ roles as teachers need to be taken most seriously.

To be emotionally healthy, children need love and guidance.  Neither love nor guidance is enough by itself.

Love is a basic human need.  It starts with feeding, touching, clothing, and sheltering at it’s base.  Love includes talking to the children and listening to them.  Love means spending time and energy to be with the child and to do activities.  Love is understanding the unique character and needs of each child.  For infants, touching, eye contact, and reflecting their sounds and later words are acts of love.  Physical affection continues to be the most important way to show love to children.

Good guidance or lack of it will make the difference between raising a productive and moral person or someone whom you will not be proud of.  Guidance has to do with teaching right from wrong, primarily by modeling it.  Character building is an essential part of guidance.  Children who learn responsibility and accountability grow up to be productive members of the society.  Children must have boundaries in which to operate, that is to know what is ok to do and what is not.  Discipline is an important part of building a positive character for the child.  Discipline teaches positive behavior as well as boundaries which are important building blocks of character.

Parents teach the essentials of life to children by who they are and how they act in front of the child. There are other factors affecting the emotional health of the child including the extended family, school, the immediate community, and the culture at large.  However, the basic need of every child is to be loved and guided at home first.

Rachelle R. Mand, PhD., MFT
24586 Hawthorne Blvd. #109
Torrance, Ca. 90505
www.DrMandPhD.com
Tel/Fax 310-375-2100

Comments are closed.