There’s no doubt that emotional health is equally as important as physical health. As parents, we have an obligation to nurture our child’s emotional well-being. Positive emotional health can benefit children in many ways; not only do emotionally healthy children have a higher sense of confidence and self-esteem, they can easily bounce back from failure, conquer challenges, and reach their true potential.
Check out these 5 tips for raising an emotionally healthy child:
- Focus on feelings. It’s important to teach your child at a very young age (think infancy) to express their feelings. Whether your child is angry, sad, happy, excited, scared, etc. it’s important to identify and acknowledge what emotions your child is feeling. Then you can teach them the skills to cope and deal with that feeling. Show real interest in your child’s feelings and help them express, and healthily manage their emotions.
- Let them make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes, how do you learn? It’s important to teach your child that it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s ok to fail. It’s ok to be wrong. Reason being? That’s how you learn! Teaching your child that mistakes are ok, and encouraged, can help them develop a healthy relationship with failure and how to deal with shortcomings positively.
- Let them make decisions. Not only will allowing your child to make some of their own (age-appropriate) decisions help foster their independence, but it will also help them deal with the consequences or rewards of their actions.
- Nurture them. There is no such thing as too much love! Caring, nurturing, and loving your child is a BIG way to help them feel emotionally secure and will also help them grow into loving adults.
- Lead by example and take care of your emotional well-being. Parents need to practice what they preach. By taking care of your emotional health you can in turn help your child grow into an emotionally healthy little person!
Drop by at The Little Gym, and check out how our programmes help in nurturing your child’s emotional well-being. Visit www.thelittlegym.com.my for more info!
