Child's emotional development – how to support their mental resilience?
A child's emotional development is just as important as their physical and intellectual development. The ability to recognize, express, and control emotions affects social relationships, coping with stress, and mental resilience. Supporting a child in this area allows them to function better in everyday life and build self-confidence. In this article, we will discuss how to effectively support a child's emotional development and build their mental resilience.
Why is a child's emotional development important?
✔ Enables your child to better cope with difficult situations.
✔ Helps build healthy relationships with peers and adults.
✔ Develops the ability to control emotions and express feelings.
✔ Strengthens mental resilience, which is useful in adult life.
✔ Teaches empathy and understanding of other people's emotions.
How to develop emotions in children?
1. Teach your child to recognize and name emotions
Children often do not understand what they feel, so it is worth helping them identify emotions.
✔ Describe your child's emotions – "I see you're sad, what happened?"
✔ Use books and pictures that depict different emotions in children.
✔ Practice recognizing emotions in fairy tale or movie characters.
✔ Use games and activities that help name emotions.
2. Let your child express their emotions
Suppressing emotions can lead to frustration and problems in the future.
✔ Accept all emotions, even difficult ones like anger or sadness.
✔ Teach your child how to express emotions in a healthy way, for example by talking or drawing.
✔ Create a safe space to express feelings.
3. Support your child in difficult situations
Children learn to deal with difficulties by observing adults.
✔ Be there for your child when they are going through difficult times.
✔ Demonstrate ways to deal with emotions, e.g. breathing techniques.
✔ Help your child understand that emotions are natural and can be controlled.
4. Develop empathy and sensitivity
Empathy allows us to better understand children's emotions and interpersonal relationships.
✔ Read books that touch on children's feelings and emotions.
✔ Encourage sharing and helping others.
✔ Talk about how other people are feeling and how you can help them.
5. Help learn to regulate emotions
Children need to learn how to control their emotions to avoid impulsive reactions.
✔ Teach your child calming techniques, such as deep breathing or counting to ten.
✔ Support in stressful situations, helping your child find calm solutions.
✔ Avoid yelling and punishing for emotions – instead teach how to deal with them.
How to build mental resilience in children?
1. Give your child a sense of security
A child who feels safe copes better with stress and challenges.
✔ Show love and support every day.
✔ Use routine and predictability to help your child feel stable.
✔ Avoid excessive criticism and comparisons to other children.
2. Encourage taking on challenges
A child should learn that difficulties can be overcome.
✔ Support your child in trying to solve problems on their own.
✔ Praise for the effort, not just the result.
✔ Teach that failures are part of learning and that you can learn a lot from them.
3. Teach your child how to deal with stress
Learning strategies to cope with stress allows you to better control your emotions.
✔ Teach your child simple relaxation techniques, such as diaphragmatic breathing.
✔ Encourage physical activity, which helps reduce tension.
✔ Reduce stressful stimuli, such as excess screens and noise.
4. Be a role model
Children learn primarily by observing adults.
✔ Show how to control emotions in everyday life.
✔ React calmly in difficult situations so your child can learn to do the same.
✔ Show empathy towards others so that your child learns to imitate such behaviors.
The Most Common Mistakes in Developing Emotional Resilience
❌ Suppressing a child’s emotions instead of helping them express them.
❌ Overprotection that prevents a child from learning to cope with difficulties.
❌ Parents not showing emotions, which makes it difficult for the child to learn to recognize them.
❌ Lack of consistency in learning to regulate emotions and ignoring the child's needs.
❌ Expecting the child to always be calm and not experience strong emotions.
Summary
A child's emotional development is a process that requires support, patience and a good example from adults. Learning to recognize and control emotions in children helps them function better in society and build mental resilience. It is important to allow the child to express emotions, support them in difficult situations and teach them techniques for dealing with stress. By supporting the emotions of a child, we help them build self-confidence and the ability to overcome challenges in the future.
