We talk about nurturing children often, but what exactly does it mean to nurture and what is our role? The dictionary defines a nurturer as, “someone who nurtures others, offering food, protection, support, encouragement, or training”. On the face of it, nurturing appears to be about caring and protection. It wasn’t that long ago that parents and educators were mostly focused on the logistical elements of nurturing such as feeding, clothing, sheltering, and imparting knowledge. The emotional development of a child wasn’t a priority factor in the way that it is today, or at the very least, wasn’t an area that was understood enough to be able to consciously nurture. Now when we think about nurturing children, we are more aware of the holistic picture.
 
Research and developments in psychology now help us understand that nurturing a child involves several pillars. Rather than looking simply at providing for basic needs, we understand that nurturing is also about the people and relationships in a child’s life. We also understand that rather than focusing on the child’s personality (although this does need reflecting on when developing a nurturing approach, which we’ll touch upon later), we create the optimum environment. Much like the analogy of planting a seed in the nutrient rich soil to ensure its healthy growth.

​Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs shows us a model for meeting needs and nurturing. At the bottom of the pyramid are our basic physiological needs. From there, we build upon our needs until we reach the top of the pyramid where we can grow and spend time on personal development and fulfilment. It’s important to note this is a theory. It has been recognised that people may require their needs met in a different order and there is debate as to whether there is a hierarchy at all. But as a guide, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs draws awareness to our human needs and helps us reflect on how to nurture our children. There is certainty amongst psychologists that when basic needs, such as safety, security, and attachment, are not met, children cannot reach their potential in learning. This is significant and suggests that we should, most definitely, pay attention to how we might consciously provide both physical and emotional care.

So, how can we nurture children?
 
We need to look at nurture from physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual perspectives. Although these are separate elements, they are also interconnected. Physical nurturing involves the provision of good food, shelter, clothing, hygiene etc. When we take of children’s physical needs, we also send them an emotional based message that they are loved and cared about. Emotional nurturing relates to consideration of their self-esteem, mental health, development of coping skills and resilience. Mental nurturing involves opportunity to learn and develop skills that help them gain fulfilment and purpose in life. This links back to emotional nurturing as their learning and skill acquisition impacts confidence, self-esteem, and overall happiness. It also links to spiritual nurturing as we help them discover their passions, purpose, place in the world and develop their understanding of self. As you can see, these elements of nurture cannot be disconnected.
 
After the provision of physical needs, we can first and foremost, make ourselves aware of attachment theory. This is based on the concept of early relationships that children form with a significant adult. The theory states that a strong, secure attachment with at least one main caregiver is crucial to a child’s development. This attachment has the power to influence a child’s emotional wellbeing, future relationships and even links to future generations. It is worth becoming familiar with the 4 attachment styles and reflecting on our own experiences as well as how that may be presenting itself in our relationships with children.
 
In addition to this, we can choose our approach to our interactions with children that are rooted in a few principles. These principles are:

• Children are individuals. Acceptance of a child’s stage of development, personality, learning style and challenges as well as strengths creates an environment where self-esteem can grow. A commitment to supporting a child as an individual with unique interests and strengths (free of any rigid expectations we may be holding) also means giving space to find purpose.
• Talking and active listening. Remembering that we are in a relationship with a child allows us to make space for talking, listening, and guiding rather than directing, instructing, and lecturing. Feeling heard helps a child to know they matter. This leads to greater confidence, self-belief, and self-respect.
• Behaviour is communication. By nature, children’s ability to regulate and make appropriate choices in times of emotional challenges is limited. This is brain development. Over time, they learn the skill of regulation and become better decision makers. When we base our response to dysregulated reactions in the knowledge that those reactions are communicating something to us (an unmet need, a stressor, guidance towards a more appropriate reaction), we can limit the impact that punishment or feeling isolated with a big emotion can have on a child.

 
How does nurturing a child look in real life?
Nurturing a child involves simple everyday interactions, relationship building and some inner work for us the adults.
 
Ways you can nurture your child include:

• Provide good food.
• Provide clean, weather appropriate clothing.
• Provide a warm home (ideally consider any sensory needs in relation to noise, space your child may need etc and routines that your child may require) where physical safety is protected.
• Allow expression of feelings.
• Be a listener.
• Validate feelings. Be empathetic.
• Hug. Or gentle hair ruffles.
• Laugh together. Play or be playful.
• Be present.
• Understand developmental stage so your expectations are appropriate.
• Provide non-confrontational opportunities for discussing (age appropriate) world, national or societal issues, expectations for behaviour, emotional challenges, or relationship issues. Speak respectfully.
• Model and teach healthy coping strategies.
• Apologise.
• Ask questions about your child’s life, friendships.
• Choose your consequences for unwanted behaviours or reactions and use them consistently. Try to use consequences that teach rather than punish. Natural consequences can be a useful approach.
• Give age-appropriate tasks that show trust.
• Encourage activities that promote physical health such as sports or creativity.
• Have dedicated family time, 1-1 time.
• Have screen use boundaries that work for your family.
• Model relaxation and mindfulness
• Provide education.
• Answer big questions honestly and as best you can.
• Provide social opportunities.

 
Nurturing children is a big responsibility. Have self-compassion, especially on those days where you doubt yourself. Your ability to nurture is dependent on your own wellbeing so taking care of yourself is important to do alongside taking care of your child. Remember, once you’ve taken care of the basic physical needs, nurturing comes down to relationships. Prioritise that and your future self, your child, and the generations to come will thank you.   

In my coaching work, we focus a lot on top down (brain to body) strategies which means cognitive approaches to emotional challenges and regulation. Recent training I’ve undertaken has meant I’ve begun working more deeply on nervous system regulation strategies that support the bottom up (body to brain) approach to managing emotions. This has added more techniques beyond breathing to my toolkit. In addition, during my Kinesiology training, I came across primitive reflexes and it opened a whole new level of ways to help children with their emotional challenges that involves the Nervous System.
 
Of course, emotions aren’t isolated experiences for our children. It’s not as simple as experiencing an event and it causing a ripple effect that is the behaviour we may see. Like the tip of an iceberg, the behaviour is the release of emotional energy or coping strategies that the child may employ. Beneath the surface are many possible triggers and circumstances that occur. These include individual external events, small or large, but also include internal circumstances that we, as the adults caring and nurturing a child, may not fully understand or even be aware of. These internal events include, amongst others, sensory preferences, personality traits such as high sensitivity, sensory processing difficulties, undiagnosed or mild neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders or … retained primitive reflexes.
 
Primitive Reflexes are involuntary reflexes that infants have to survive and develop. You’ll have noticed some of these reflexes are checked for shortly after birth. In the early years, as the central nervous system develops, these reflexes are “integrated” and become voluntary responses. Some children and adults have retained primitive reflexes, which means the reflex wasn’t fully integrated and is now impacting cognitive and/or motor skills. The main primitive reflexes are:

• Fear paralysis reflex
• Moro (startle) reflex
• TLR Reflex
• ATNR Reflex
• STNR
• Root and Suck Reflex
• Palmer Grasp Reflex
• Babinski Reflex

​Give them opportunities to develop resilience.
Resilience building is one of the key traits in emotional intelligence, boosting wellbeing through a strong link with self-esteem. Although resilience is required when faced with a challenge and therefore may not be accompanied by obvious feelings of happiness in the short term, it is connected to lower levels of distress. Resilient kids are required to look for and use their strengths, think flexibly and optimistically, learn from mistakes, and involve positive beliefs about self. Resilience overarches a general feeling of satisfaction which is a form of long-term happiness.

Support them to build healthy relationships.
There is so much research that shows feeling connected to others is a major factor in our happiness. In fact, a Harvard University study suggests that relationships are a predictor of long-term happiness. Positive, healthy relationships can help reduce stress and are connected to strong happy emotions. Guiding and coaching our kids to develop healthy friendships supports their happiness. Trust, listening, kindness and empathy are just some of the characteristics to support. You can read more about this on a previous blog.

Focus praise on effort rather than achievement.
Focusing on effort raises self-esteem and helps children to build a positive self-image. A study by Carol Dweck, the leading psychologist behind the theory of growth mindset, suggests that praising effort is motivating and boosts performance. Growth Mindset is the belief one has in their ability to improve and learn. This belief means that more time and effort is put into challenges, which leads to higher achievement. In turn, this boosts self-esteem, and a cycle emerges that happiness becomes the centre of in the form of satisfaction and optimism.

Show them how to reframe thinking.
Reframing is a thinking strategy that breaks a negative thought cycle. The human brain has a bias called the Negativity Bias. This describes the tendency to take more notice of negative experiences and place more importance on them, even when presented with an equal amount of positive experience.
Even though we may think we see everything truthfully, the reality is that our minds are managing a huge amount of information at any given moment and therefore filtering occurs. Encouraging our children to assess their thinking and alter perspectives to more accurate views can all address the negativity bias through optimism and gratitude. This can help them manage uncomfortable emotions such as worry, anxiety and sadness. Examples include turning the thought “All my friends can do this accept me” into “What are my friends doing that I can learn from?” and stepping out of the anxiety associated with starting a new after school club by thinking about all the good things that will come from it.

Help them recognise how they feel and build self-awareness.
Emotional intelligence and happiness are interconnected. Emotionally intelligent people are self-aware. They know themselves well. They understand their feelings and the things that create them. People with high EQ are also pretty good at implementing thinking strategies to their emotions, building resilience and the ability to regulate and return to calm more quickly. Because they understand themselves, they tend to know their values and stick to them which means they are closest to their best self, promoting longer term happiness such as pride, contentment, and an inner sense of peace. On top of all that, emotionally intelligent people have a growth mindset, so they aren’t caught up in a negative self-image.  

This probably feels big when we apply it to the context of raising children, but when we remind ourselves that they, like all of us, are on a journey through life we understand that emotional intelligence is about self-development. In the context of raising happy kids, this really means helping them to develop curiosity about themselves, their emotions, their relationships and what will make life a success for them.

Visit our resource store to find resources that build emotional intelligence!

ACCEPT ALL FEELINGS
Choose to create a home environment that accepts all feelings. Our children need to know that emotions fluctuate between comfortable ones and uncomfortable ones! Despite being well intended, our approach to our child’s uncomfortable feelings can create a subconscious belief that they should feel happy which in turn can create feelings of shame or guilt around emotions such as anger, sadness, embarrassment etc. There’s an important distinction between accepting behaviour and accepting feelings and it’s important to find the middle ground, so that children understand that happiness is not destination to arrive at. 
 
RESILIENCE 
Resilience is the natural progression from accepting all feelings. If we can support the development of resilience, our children will be able to bounce back from failure, hurt, upset and anything that challenges them. Life isn’t always fair and there are always going to be things that happen that are outside of our control. Being able to ‘brush’ themselves off after a setback is key to building inner contentment. There are several ways to go about supporting resilience including teaching coping strategies, but conversations that develop self-awareness and emotional intelligence are also crucial. Children who know themselves well, understand their likes and dislikes and have a growing knowledge of how the brain works, will feel more empowered.
 
GROWTH MINDSET
Growth Mindset is a resilience building, coping strategy but also a way of living life! If we can support our children to develop a growth mindset, especially in areas of life that challenge them (for example, a school subject they find hard or a hobby they want to make progress with) we can gift them with the attitude they need achieve things that make them feel good, boosting their self-esteem and confidence. 
 
GRATITUDE
There’s been much research into the effect of gratitude, showing that it can change the brain making a more positive mindset. Gratitude practise can become part of your family life, helping your child understand that they can find good things in bad days!
 
KINDNESS
Kindness doesn’t just make other people feel good! Being kind feels good for us to as it leads to the release of chemicals such as oxytocin and dopamine, which contribute to wellbeing. Being kind gives children something to be proud of which contributes to their self-worth. Kindness is a natural default for humans (it’s usually when our thoughts impact our emotions and behaviours that we see unkind behaviour, not an unkind person), so encouraging your child to show kindness promotes happiness. Self-kindness is also important. Being able to forgive themselves, soothe themselves and look after their wellbeing will mean our children will know how to ensure the release of those chemicals for themselves.
 
MINDFULNESS
Our world has become so busy and distracting. Finding mindfulness activities that suit your child (it isn’t all about meditating), will encourage them to be present in the moment and with their thoughts. Mindfulness activities for kids could include nature, body movements such as yoga or activities such as art, craft or colouring. With high levels of screen time, carving out mindful moments has become important. 
 
EXERCISE
As for everyone, exercise supports health and also emotional wellbeing. For children the benefits of exercise include the release of serotonin (one of the brains well-being chemicals), improved mood, improved confidence, increased body positivity and it can break negative thinking through distraction and socialising.
 
SLEEP
Research shows that good sleep has a strong correlation with happiness. Lack of sleep activates the amygdala and impacts regulation skills, which in turn can lead to decreased self-worth because of how they feel about themselves because of the way they behaved, as well as how the consequences of it impact them. A bad night’s sleep can be the start of a vicious circle, where tiredness impacts decision making and impulse control, followed by the forming or consolidation of subconscious beliefs that can be formed by the outcomes of behaviour, such as punishments, tension between them and others etc. Which in turn then leads to a repeat of the cycle. 
 
FOOD
Good nutrition is clearly linked to overall health and increased wellbeing. High sugar diets tend to lead to energy peaks and troughs that can impact children’s mood. Our busy lifestyles can make it easy to slide off track with healthy eating, so it’s helpful to undertake regular check ins to keep your family values for health accountable. 
 
BODY POSTURE
A super simple, but effective technique to shift the way your child feels instantly. Emotion is held physically. We feel it in our bodies, hence the butterflies in our belly when we are nervous or the tight burning in our chest when we are angry etc. If your child is feeling unhappy, unconfident or nervous, get them to hold their head up, push their shoulders back and stand tall. Talk about the small but significant shift in how they feel.
 
 
And a little extra tip … release the idea that your child’s happiness is your responsibility. You don’t have to make your child happy. This means you can release the pressure to take away difficult emotions, or place importance on material things to make them feel better. What is your responsibility is laying the foundations and building the scaffolding which nurtures their emotional intelligence and teaches them to know how to be happy. This is subtly different from their happiness being your responsibility. Our children are small, but they are individuals who will grow up to be living a life beyond us. As our children grow up, our aim is to be able to remove the scaffolding a bit at a time, revealing a stable, resilient and happy person. 

This week marks Children's Mental Health Week, an awareness week organised by mental health charity Place2be. The theme is Express Yourself, which is such a great theme and easy to explore at home with your own children. Supporting our children to express themselves involves both implementing parenting strategies and developing an awareness around why it's an important area of emotional health.

Emotional Expression is key to emotional health and yet traditionally, children's voices have been quietened when it comes to showing their feelings. Generational patterns have created adults who feel discomfort when confronted with an overwhelmed child, though things are changing rapidly in the modern parenting world. Many of us are more aware of the importance of emotional health and are trying to break those old patterns. But, it's tough. Even though we KNOW emotional expression is important, holding space for it can be HARD! The crucial thing here is to know why it's important, which will support empathy and how to approach it in a balanced way which works for parent as well as child. 

When we allow our children to express themselves emotionally, we support their brains to process emotions, make sense of them and prevent them becoming "stuck" in their feelings. Unprocessed feelings can become suppressed and rear themselves throughout our lives when we are triggered. Ironically, it's those unprocessed and unexpressed feelings from our own childhood (because they were suppressed by parenting approaches) that are triggered by our own children's big emotions and can cause the cycle to repeat.

So, how can we work on making the changes to allow emotional expression? Well, first of all it takes a parenting mindset shift. All feelings are OK. Secondly, it needs a realistic expectation of how emotional expression should look in your household. The younger the child, the more understanding and support they will need around their ability to regulate themselves when expressing their emotions. It also means being kind to yourself; you're human and it won't always be easy to hold space for the big feelings of a dysregulated child! Finally, it takes regular role modelling of emotional expression and implementing activities into your family life that encourage children to creatively express themselves, releasing feelings and promoting communication with you. 

Here's a few ideas  for ways you can encourage your child to express themselves. You can download this prompt sheet for free! Just click on the image.

It's important to recognise that holding space for emotional expression does not mean condoning unacceptable behaviours. Over time you can guide your child to express themselves in healthy ways. These phrases will encourage your child to open up and talk about how they feel:

• Tell me more
• Describe that to me.
• How did that feel?
• What did that make you feel?
• What is your opinion?

We've got some great resources for young children that will encourage them to express themselves and open up conversations about how they feel in our shop. Click here to see our range!

3rd – 9th February 2020 is Child Mental Health Week and the theme is Find your Brave, which is a fabulous topic to discuss and raise awareness. Children (and adults too!) often think that being brave is something that confident and super successful people achieve with ease. But that’s far from the truth. When people are being brave, they don’t even feel brave. Usually, children associate brave with being fearless. Helping them to understand that brave is usually accompanied by anxiety, nerves and fear is a great foundation to them believing they are braver than they think! As a child, I wasn’t taught the difference and so to me, everyone seemed to be braver than I was. I was such an anxious child that I was actually being brave daily! And when I really was being brave, I often heard phrases like, “see, it wasn’t that hard was it?” It’s the way parents parented in the 1980’s, but a simple rephrasing would have been far more empowering and a confidence boost for me (see suggestions below).
 
Bravery looks different to each of us. Our experiences form the way we respond emotionally, so one person might have to dig deeper for courage than another in the same situation. Being brave isn’t only about facing challenges, but also about saying no or disagreeing with someone. This could be especially true for children under peer pressure. In this case, following their gut feeling could show real courage. This could easily be interpreted as being scared or weak unless we empower them with knowledge and celebrate their brave moments.
 
Here’s some suggestions to help you talk to your child about bravery:

• What does brave look like to you?
• When do you need to find courage?
• How does brave feel to you?
• Can you think of someone who has done something brave?
• When have you doubted yourself and been brave?
• When have you felt nervous and been brave?
• When you have you been afraid and been brave?
• Have you ever stood up to someone?

 
And here’s some things you could say to empower your child to help them find their brave:

• I love that you did that hard thing.
• That must have been tough, but you must feel proud you did it.
• You probably don’t feel brave, but I can see you are.
• It’s OK to change your mind.
• It’s OK to not feel brave.

 
Being brave is closely linked to having a growth mindset. When children don’t fear failing and are willing to have a go, they really can find their brave. And when you empathise with them and talk about times you’ve been brave too, they’ll feel the safety and security they need to step out of their comfort zone.