How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Respect

How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children

A Series of Articles on Raising Emotionally Healthy Children

Guest Post from The Children’s Project

All of us – babies, toddlers, teenagers, parents and grandparents have the same emotional needs.  Meeting these needs in childhood provides the foundation for success in school, work, relationships, marriage and life in general. We see it in our daily lives and the news, failure to meet the emotional needs of our children is a serious and under-recognized problem facing our country.

Dr. Gerald Newmark, in his book How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting the Five Critical Needs of Children…and Parents Too!, shows parents and teachers how to nourish emotional health at home and at school. The book helps parents recognize and satisfy the critical emotional needs that all children have: to feel Respected, Important, Accepted, Included, and Secure, and in the process, parents will benefit too.

In the coming weeks, we will present a series of articles with more information on meeting each of these five emotional needs, including tips and activities.  We’ll also address “behavior that hurts and behavior that helps”, as well as how to become a professional at parenting.  These simple, powerful tools will enhance the lives of children, parents and families. The goal is to raise children to be self-confident, independent, responsible, thinking, caring, and civic-minded individuals.

How do We Begin to Love our Children Unconditionally?

“Love in a Nutshell”

by Sedef Orsel

Our daily lives are so fast and so hectic that we have little time to reflect and understand how our actions translate into a chain of events that significantly impact our children. Each day, parental love transfers into a belief in self-worth and abundance for our children. When we demonstrate parental love, our children are better able to grow more deeply in love with themselves.

How Fathers Can Play an Active Role in their Teen Daughters Lives

Sugar and spice and all that’s nice. That’s what little girls are made of.

by Erica S. Gould

Father-daughter relationships are complicated. One minute she is your little girl in pigtails, following you everywhere. You’re the only man in her life. Then, she grows up. She spends more time with her friends, starts wearing makeup, and GASP–she goes on her first date. Suddenly you feel left behind and shut out. But wait–you don’t have to take a back seat to the teenage years in your daughter’s life. Instead of becoming a passive observer, try to play an active role. Studies have consistently shown that girls who have good relationships with their fathers have healthier relationships with men, have increased self esteem, and fewer overall mental and emotional health concerns.