Emotional wellness during early development is key for children. From infancy through toddlerhood, children need to feel emotionally safe so that they can focus on the world around them, explore, and learn. Emotional wellness can be described as the developing capacity of children (birth through age eight) to experience, regulate, and express emotion; form close, secure, interpersonal relationships; and explore the environment and learn – all in the cultural context of family and community.
Research illustrates that human connection is the active ingredient fueling a child’s development. Before children learn their letters, numbers, or how to share, they must experience positive, nurturing interactions to support future academic success and future healthy development. With careful attention, early learning professionals can provide plans that successfully support emotional wellness through promotion, prevention, and intervention.
Being mentally healthy during childhood means reaching developmental and emotional milestones and learning healthy social skills and how to cope when there are problems. Mentally healthy children have a positive quality of life and can function well at home, in school, and in their communities.
Some ways to promote emotional wellness in children include building loving, responsive relationships with them, demonstrating problem-solving skills, enlightening parents and others about emotional wellness development, providing emotionally supportive environments, using project and experience-based learning, being aware of varying temperaments among children, and understanding that culture plays a role in emotional and social development.
Prevention is also important in promoting emotional wellness in children. This includes preventing missed opportunities to assess emotional wellness by using well-suited observation, assessment, and screening tools to identify and document any difficulties, progress, and success. It also involves preventing unrealistic expectations by knowing what to expect based on concrete knowledge of child development and current best practices.