Cracking The Code to Emotional Health

Hello again and thank you for taking a Moment with Mel. Today we are going to talk about cracking the code to emotional health. Emotional health is our ability to understand, accept, and manage our feelings and emotions, cope with life’s challenges and maintain healthy relationships with ourselves and others. Last time we talked about what we need to do during pregnancy and the first 3 years of life to set the stage for emotional generational wealth. Today we take the next step. Anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges were already on the rise in our children and multiple factors related to COVID-19 have made things worst. A close relationship with primary caregivers impacts a child’s ability to be emotionally healthy. A child is significantly impacted by the density of healthy people in their lives.  If we do not crack the code for emotional generational wealth, any financial generational wealth that we gain will not stay with our family even one generation.

If you have trouble controlling and expressing your emotions, more than likely the household you grew up in struggled also. Sometimes the key to helping the next generation is getting help ourselves. I promise you, for every child acting out, there is a story behind it.  When our children cannot talk to us or express the full range of emotions around us, they gravitate towards people and places where they feel seen and heard. Those could be people who mean them good or people who mean them harm. If they cannot get our attention unless they act out, they will act out. Research shows that given the choice of a negative consequence or being neglected by us, the child will subconsciously choose the negative outcome, just to get some attention from us. The lack of attention is more distressing to them than the negative consequences they have to endure.

Every child deserves to grow up in an environment where they feel safe and loved. They should not be scared of us or walk on eggshells around us. If we want something different from what we had growing up, we have to do something different. If you grew up in a healthy household, I bet there was lots of talking.

We know SO much more about childhood development now that we did 20 years or even 10 years ago. Our job is to decrease the Adverse Childhood Experiences our children are exposed to and be the buffer for them when we do occur. Our first priority is mom. When mom is happy, baby is happy. We also need to lock our arms around that family and be part of the high density of healthy people surrounding these children so that they can develop into who God put them on this earth to be.

One of the greatest Blessings bestowed upon us is our children.  Be mindful when you have children. Be mindful who you have children with. Be mindful of all the environments your children are in. From my poem “Master Peace” from my book, “Protect me on all sides, expose me to more, slowly, make sure you have eyes on me, see where I lean, don’t let just anyone around me, they can REALLY be disruptive”.