Growing emotionally healthy children
by Francis Xavior M Dimalanta
How does one raise emotionally healthy kids? It takes a lot of patience
combined with good judgment and warm, nurturing relationships to raise emotionally
healthy, comfortable and cheerful children. No matter what you do, your children
are still going to feel sad, afraid, anxious, and angry from time to time. Your
challenge, as a parent, is to learn how to help your children cope with their feelings
and express them in socially acceptable ways that don't harm others and that are
appropriate with their age and abilities.
TRUST:
The first developmental task is to teach a child to trust. The most important
factor in fostering mental health in your child is the quality of the relationship
you have with her. Without the presence of trust in this relationship, it's impossible
for your child to feel safe, close, or comfortable. Trust has its roots in infancy,
when babies gain confidence that they can depend on adults around them to meet their
basic needs. From your baby's perspective, reasonably prompt and consistent care
is an essential ingredient in developing trust. When her needs are responded to,
your baby develops trust and confidence, and feels valued and important.
It's also important to maintain that trustful feeling as your child continues to
grow. During the first two years of a child's life she is learning whether her world
is one that she can trust. Adults in her world will teach her whether her world
is a safe one, if she will be protected yet challenged, if she can trust the adults
responsible for her care. Parents have a large responsibility to behave in ways
that teach the young child that they are trustworthy. Thus parents have to keep
their word, set appropriate boundaries, protect the child from physical and emotional
harm.
One of the easiest ways to build trust is by maintaining an orderly routine throughout
the day so your child can predict what's going to happen next. Consistent rules
that your child understands also add to his sense of trust. Adults who maintain
their self-control encourage children to trust them. Then children can predict what
their responses will be and this breeds confidence in the relationship. It's also
important for rules and tasks to be appropriate for the child's age and abilities.
Trust between you and your child's other caregivers is also essential. This connection
is important for all children, but especially for children with disabilities.
CHOICES & LIMITS:
The toddler's drive toward independence and self-assertion is an important stage
of emotional development. Maintain limits, when necessary and independence when
it's possible. Avoid confrontations when you can, insist on doing things your way
when necessary, and provide as many choices for your child as possible. There are
many choices that you can offer, but they are limited choices: not 'do you want
to put on a shirt?' but 'which shirt?' not 'do you want any vegetables on your plate?'
but 'do you want carrots or potatoes?' You can also give your children choices about
their play and activities. When children are expected to choose for themselves what
they want to do, they have endless opportunities for making decisions.
Older children of 4 or 5 years need to reach out to the world around them, to be
a part of and connected to the group. Try to encourage children of this age to think
things up and try things out. It's important for them to feel the emotional satisfaction
that comes from experiences of exploring, acting and doing new things together with
friends.
When children don't have opportunities to make choices, endless struggles result
with a spirited child and a loss of self-confidence in less spirited children. But
not everything is a choice and sometimes the answer is 'no.' Learning how to cope
with disappointments, delays, and setbacks is also a critical part of developing
a healthy, balanced mental attitude. Try to reduce the level and frequency of disappointments
and frustrations in order to avoid unnecessary battles.
COMPETENCY:
The child learns competency from ages seven to eleven. Parents are encouraged to
allow the child to attempt new things, master tasks, give praise in a sincere manner
for a job done well-enough, and introduce new opportunities for growth into their
child's world. Children need to be allowed to try new things, to 'dabble' in anything
that interests them until it is known that a genuine and lasting interest is there,
as is the wish to pursue this interest further. Parents need to compliment their
children on small tasks and to remember that the smallest thing is a building block
in a sense of mastery and competency desperately needed by the child who will go
on to have healthy self-esteem.
SELF-LOVE:
Self-love is the most essential of all skills. Children learn this concept from
the way parents (and other adults) treat them. Children first need to know that
they are loved and accepted for who they are. With this as a basis, their natural
impulse is to take that love and learn to contribute it to the world in constructive
ways. Self-love is the best gift we can give our children.
Self-love in children, as in adults, means liking themselves, enjoying themselves,
and accepting themselves. Children need to know that although parents may not always
like what they do, or have done, we still like and love them. There is a great difference
between rejecting a child�s behavior and rejecting the child. Help the child understand
that he or she is a human being and as a human being he or she will make mistakes.
Our goal is to help children learn from those mistakes and assist them in making
corrections.
We also help the child look for strengths by helping him or her experience success.
Success, obviously, means different things to different children. For one child
success might mean being able to put on his or her shoes without help, and being
told, 'Good job!' Another child may experience success by remembering to put his
or her toys away before bedtime.
SELF-CONCEPT:
Self-concept is the image we have of ourselves. It means liking ourselves just the
way we are. To teach children about self-concept, we must look at them without labels
or comparisons. If a child is taller than most of the other children in his or her
class, he or she may feel awkward. However, if the child is taught that his or her
height is an asset of which to be proud, the child will grow up with respect for
him- or herself and others.
There are things about every child that are unique. It is by zeroing in on each
special quality - whether it is their willingness to let someone else ride their
bike, their sense of humor, or their ability to carry a tune - that we give children
a positive sense of self. Children take great pride and delight in the knowledge
that there is no one exactly like them in the world. Share a child's uniqueness
by looking into his or her eyes with a smile that says, 'You are special. I love
to be with you!'
SELF-ESTEEM:
Self-esteem has been defined as " the sense of being lovable and capable." When
these two qualities are in sync, a child has high self-esteem.
Children learn about themselves and know themselves only by reflection. For the
first important years of their lives, parents are the major influence providing
this reflection to the child. Later on, teachers and friends in addition to parents
provide this reflection.
As parents, we want to make everything right and wonderful for our children. We
want to eliminate conflict, disappointment, rejection, and failure from their lives.
But we need to remember that life is a process. Children will encounter conflict,
disappointment, rejection, and failure as they move through life. It is by giving
them a strong sense of self-love, self-concept, and self-esteem that we prepare
them to learn what life is all about. This is our most important task as parents.
SELF-IMAGE & INTEGRITY:
One of the most common but least discussed injuries that parents inflict
on their kids is to teach them to not trust their own perceptions. It is important
for adults to realize that any of us has his/her perceptions. The child who feels
sad must not be told, 'Cheer up' or 'You'll get over it.' The youngster who is happy
over a B on a report and is showing his joy must not be told anything that diminishes
his feeling. When a teenage girl breaks up with her boyfriend, she doesn't need
to be told, 'You'll find that there are plenty of other fish in the sea.' When Daddy
repeatedly doesn't go to work because of excessive drinking, it is important that
the child not be told that Daddy has the flu. When parents extol the virtues of
honesty verbally, then lie to others on the phone or lie about the age of their
child at the ticket window at the movie, the child's perceptions about the value
of honesty are at best blurred.
The above ties in strongly with the necessity of allowing children to 'have' their
feelings. Optimally, a healthy home is one where all those who live there, children
included, are allowed to have, identify, and then appropriately express their feelings.
To diminish the child's right to know and express her feelings is a disservice that
will cause irreparable harm and follow her into childhood. It is often difficult
to teach children that the adults in their lives are to be respected and still respect
the children. Parents and children are not peers, but all are human beings worthy
of respect. When parents disrespect their children by not allowing them their feelings
and/or their perceptions, children learn that they are not important, not worthy
of respect, and not valued as they are. These negative experiences will follow them
into adulthood and seriously hamper their functioning as healthy adults.
Children need to be treated as individuals, distinctly unique, different from their
siblings or any other child. Communicating to a child that she is unlike any other
person and is valued as such is a strong message of respect which goes far in building
her self-esteem. Children need to be shown that they are respected for who they
are. Avoid giving your kids the impression that what matters to you is their performance,
particularly in a specific field. The athletic father of what turns out to be a
piano-playing son needs to learn to put aside his own wishes and fantasies for the
child and become one who appreciates piano playing. The mother who wishes for her
child to shine academically may need to learn that her daughter is an athlete and
love her for who she is. It is not appropriate for parents to try to get their children
to live out their own unfulfilled dreams. Nor is it healthy to try to squeeze a
child into a mold that the parents desire but that does not communicate value for
who that particular child is.
FEEL WHAT YOU WANT, CONTROL WHAT YOU DO:
One of the most valuable skills you can teach your children is how to express
strong emotions without hurting themselves, others, or damaging property. Help your
children learn to feel what they want, but control what they do. Begin by communicating
to your child in a non-judgmental way, showing him you understand how he feels.
Encourage your child to say his feelings out loud and to tell the other person how
he feels. If the child's too young or inexperienced to know what to say, model a
simple sentence for him to copy. The important thing to remember is that the same
rule applies to you: feel what you want, but control what you do.
Here are some ways that can help you decide if your child is doing all right:
• Is your child working on emotional tasks that are appropriate for her age and
ability? For example, if she's two and a half, is she asserting herself from time
to time?
• Is your child able to separate from you without undue stress and form an attachment
with at least one other adult?
• Is your child learning to conform to routines at school without too much trouble?
• Is your child able to involve himself deeply in play?
• Can your child settle down and concentrate?
Is your child aware of all her feelings and can she express them without
In summary, parents who desire to produce emotionally healthy children would do
well to focus on making their child's world physically and emotionally safe, to
learn who their child is and then do all they can to help that unique child BE that
person and thrive doing so, to allow children their feelings and perceptions, and
to create situations in which the child can develop a sense of competency and mastery
over different things. Doing these things is not easy for the parents, but the results
of an emotionally healthy child will make all the parents' efforts worthwhile. Later
on, these emotionally healthy children will go on to function as emotionally healthy
adults. What happens in the developmental years spent in the home is of VITAL importance.
© Copyright 2004 Francis Xavior M Dimalanta. May not be reprinted without permission.