What is Emotional Health?

What is emotional health? Especially how does emotional health affect your children?

Understanding your child's emotional health I'm sure is challenging. Here's a reliable source that discusses different moods and emotions that kids and teens experience.

Answering the question what is emotional health is crucial to your child's healthy development.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a medical health counselor, nor do I possess traditional credentials that might impress you to listen to me.

I do know what isn't emotional health for children, having begun

  • getting drunk regularly at age 12,
  • stealing from my dad weekly,
  • breaking the high school record for skipping classes, and
  • excessive gambling problems,
all while still a high schooler.

I've been clean and sober for over 25 years, gambling free for over 30 years, and love attending Adult Education Classes as well as teaching them from time to time.

Basically speaking, good emotional health is being able to handle your stuff in healthy ways.

Having been a bulimic, drug addict, and nomad as well as the experiencing the above emotional problems, I've learned a lot about how to handle my emotional stuff in healthy ways.

No bulimia or drugs for 25 years as well.

The above problems resulted because I was stuffing, denying, and running away from my emotions.

It was much easier to grab a bottle of vodka and take a few slugs than it was for me to speak about what was going on, especially since no one ever really asked.

Plus men and boys weren't encouraged to express their feelings back in those dark ages of the early 1950s and early 1960s, at least not in my family.

I never learned how to express my emotions healthily, instead I did everything under the sun to avoid and to hide from them.

Except it didn't work. Emotional problems don't disappear, they remain, which is one aspect to consider when discussing what is emotional health.

I had no control over my thoughts as a youngster, simply feeding and focusing upon whichever thought came first to me.

Read an excellent discussion on how your child can learn to control her mental humma humma (a term I borrow from a friend).

One thing you must understand above everything else you read here and elsewhere: in order for your child to

  • experience emotional wellness and health,
  • avoid any behavioral disability and
  • experience enhanced emotional health,
she must learn to express her emotions.

As easy as it sounds, it's a bit more complicated actually than just expressing her emotions.

To express her emotions, she must feel confident, secure, trusting that when she expresses her emotions whatever they may be, she will be heard and respected.

To feel confident and secure, she must first love herself and have a good sense of self-worth.

And she'll be unable to truly love herself healthily unless mom and dad have a deep sense of self-love for themselves, as kids become who their parents are and then must change as they age.

If you'd like to explore further the concept of self-love and how to help your child develop it, check out health education for kids, one of the most important pages on Childrens Educational Books.

Or, here's a free e-Book on Self-Love: Fuel for Life.

My Promise: I will never share your personal information. I detest spam as much as you do. Thanks for your trust.

Self-Love e-Book


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Mental and Emotional Health Benefits

When a person has good emotional health, she has good healthy relationships.

Healing emotional challenges and problems is hard work, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. BUT, it is work well worth doing, the earlier the better.

A person who is emotionally and mentally healthy can deal with life challenges as they present themselves, which they will always do.

The healthier you are emotionally, the more you love yourself, the more you want to take care of yourself and be responsible for whatever life choices you make.

Helping your child to understand and to answer the question what is emotional health while she is still young is one of the greatest acts of love you give her, far more important than all the stuff she might want.

Here's information about adolescent emotional health issues.

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The information found on What is Emotional Health is the property of Childrens Educational Books.


The information and ideas presented on What is Emotional Health is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always consult your doctor or qualified health practitioner with questions about specific medical conditions.