It can be tough raising happy, emotionally healthy children in a world that is so full of emotionally unhealthy people. Children spend at least twelve years in an educational system that is, unfortunately, ill-prepared for teaching our children how to manage their emotions effectively and how to deal with stress. In a world so sorely lacking in good advice and positive role models for children, the responsibility falls on parents more than ever to equip their children with effective mental skills and strategies to encourage resilience and staying power when the going gets tough.
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Here are a few tips on how to better equip your children to navigate through their emotional world and cultivate mental and emotional strength.
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ENCOURAGE REGULAR EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping children to identify their emotions without judging the emotion is a healthy way to teach children to own their feelings and be self aware. Emotion is a normal part of life and allowing children to express them helps children to accept and deal with their emotions rather than suppressing them. When children are taught to suppress emotions (eg. boys don\u2019t cry, be a big girl now\u2026) this suppression can lead to anxiety, depression and possible panic attacks. A panic attack occurs when a child denies their emotions \u2013 the emotion gets pushed down and the body is forced to \u2018push it out\u2019 on a physical level \u2013 that energy has to be released some how. Identify and label emotions.
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BE A ROLE MODEL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be a positive role model and let your children see how you deal with your emotions. Children learn by observation and they will watch how you deal with your own anger, frustration and sadness. Some parents try to hide their emotions from their children but this is a bad idea as you are depriving your children of the chance to see what you do with your emotions. Let them see you sad or angry and show them how to deal with these emotions appropriately. Talk it over with someone, get some fresh air or exercise \u2013 whatever you do, make sure your children sometimes see how you deal with your emotional landscape \u2013 this is very valuable learning for them.
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TEACH THEM HOW TO MANAGE THEIR THINKING PROCESS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not so much what happens to us but rather how we perceive what happens to us that can make or break us. Bad things happen, yes and there is no way to make something bad seem good but the story we tell ourself can lessen the distress we feel. For example, if we fail at something, we could start an internal dialogue that goes something like this, \u201cNothing ever goes right for me. This just shows what a loser I am. What\u2019s the point of even trying? I just fail at everything\u201d. OR we could tell ourselves this story instead, \u201cI failed and it bad but that doesn\u2019t mean I am a failure \u2013 it\u2019s just that what I tried didn\u2019t work.\u201d The second self-talk dialogue will lead to a lot less stress than the first one. This is the beauty of psychological flexibility. There is ALWAYS more than one way to look at a situation. Thoughts lead to feelings and then behaviour. Ensure you teach your children to manage their thinking process and not catastrophize.
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PRESERVE SELF ESTEEM<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never tell your children that they are stupid. Always separate the behaviour from the child. What they did may not be ideal but never label the child as \u201cbad, stupid, fat or lazy\u201d. Love your children unconditionally. Your love for them should never depend upon achievement of any kind. Teach them that they are fundamentally valuable just as they are. Never compare them to others \u2013 each child has their own individual strengths. Learn to love your children just as they are. If you feel disappointment on any level \u2013 question whether it is your issue rather than your child\u2019s issue. For instance, if your child doesn\u2019t seem to have many friends, do not make an issue of it if they seem happy enough. If you imply that they should have more friends, you may inadvertently leave them feeling inadequate. Always check whether the issue is your own before addressing it with your child.
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It can be tough raising happy, emotionally healthy children in a world that is so full of emotionally unhealthy people. Children spend at least twelve years in an educational system that is, unfortunately, ill-prepared for teaching our children how to manage their emotions effectively and how to deal with stress. In a world so sorely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[7,14,13,18,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}