Parents and family environment play the most important role in helping children to understand and manage emotions, develop resilience and foster positive relationships. The family is where it's all learned and where the healthy basis for life is built. Watching children grow and helping them to develop these skills is one of the great joys of parenthood but for many parents, it can be quite a challenging task!
It is especially tricky for parents like my self who didn't grow up in a healthy environment and have mental health issues themselves. It's kind of a double task: Resetting your self while you program your self. It's kind of like a broken C-3PO that keeps shutting down, resetting and having short circuits while trying to assemble a proper working droid himself. It can get tricky.
The graphic that inspired me to do #nurturementalhealth week
Another thing that adds to the importance of this theme is that as a somewhat challenged individual in that regard my kids are more likely to exhibit some mental health issues themselves: both because proness to mental health issues can be genetically conditioned and because I(, despite my best efforts, don't always model the best behaviour.
I decided to talk about nurturing because I feel it's the best term to describe what my goal is: I don't want to fix them, I don't want to teach them something new or turn them into someone they are not. I just want to nurture the health they were born with and try my best not to screw it up.
So this week I'll try and go through some stuff I have learned, I'm still learning and have yet to learn on my way. I know it's a tall order but I feel confident and hopefully inspired by my last week's success. Besides there is a lot for me personally to gain just by thinking through this theme, implementing it and learning more about it: both as a person and a parent.
