How to Support Your Child’s Emotional Well-Being

Everyone needs a little more emotional support during the pandemic, but have you checked in on with your children recently? While Physical health and well-being may be at the forefront of all of our minds right now with the current pandemic, vigilance with mental health is just as important.

While you may be tired of your child’s favorite songs playing ad nauseam from the television set, know that these may be playing an important role for your kids. Favorite shows and movies can provide a feeling of normalcy, stability, or security while the world that they knew changes rapidly before them. Rewatching the same shows over and over again may be soothing in the face of great unknowns going on in the world right now, just another way to cope with a major transitional period. But what are other ways that parents can support their children’s emotional well-being?

Take time to check-in with your children.

Try to check-in with your children when you know they are doing something that brings them joy. Sit down with them on the floor while they play, dance to their favorite songs in the kitchen, or pick up a few crayons and draw a picture with them. Your children will appreciate that you are taking time out of your day to take an interest in their hobbies, and they may feel more comfortable to open up to you while you are on the same level, in their space. Check-in with them and encourage them to voice their feelings, in addition to any other concerns you may have about their mental or emotional well-being.

Get Help from Experts.

Even the best, most experienced parents have their limits. Many of us are underprepared to help our children when it comes to completing math homework for school, and we are certainly not licensed doctors or psychiatrists either.

The best online math tutor is a few clicks away and can help you get through homework frustrations with the guidance of real teachers and groundbreaking AI technology. Thinkster Math is recognized as a useful tool by PBS, The New York Times, and Forbes, among others, for every parent. Thinkster connects children to a professional tutor and has an easily navigated online app. Keep your children confident in their education, and even help them get ahead while they learn from home with the best online math support.

Securing your children’s mental health can be just as easy as finding an effective online tutor. Telehealth (therapy appointments that take place on a phone or tablet) is a rapidly growing tool that will help connect your child to the perfect professional therapist for their individual needs. Support your children and their emotional well-being by taking interest and action in getting them the medical care they may require. The brain is also a muscle, and your children can exercise their emotional strength by connecting with Baltimore psychologists to get the behavioral cognitive therapy they may need to get them through this tumultuous time of their life.

Create an Open Space for Emotions and Conversation.

Establish an open space for your children to come to you for those tough conversations. This may be challenging, but children thrive most whenever they are in a safe environment where emotions, thoughts, and feelings are met with acceptance and understanding. When children open up to us, it is important to react with compassion and a constructive attitude toward addressing the issue at hand.

Although you may want to “toughen your child up,” Katie Hurley, LCSW, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and parenting expert suggests that although this sentiment may come from a good place, it can lead to negative consequences resulting in your child shutting down or developing unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Supporting Your Children Starts with You

Your needs as both an individual and a parent have most likely morphed into something new and unexpected during this unprecedented period of time. However, your children’s needs may have also changed, and their needs have yet to be addressed by you, their caretaker. Support their mental well-being by supplementing their emotional health with the same concern you may have for their physical health.