3 Signs You're Building an Emotionally Healthy Home

Building an emotionally healthy home doesn't mean your family never experiences big emotions. It means creating an environment where parents and children can recognize feelings, respond thoughtfully, and grow in emotional regulation together. By evaluating a few everyday habits, you can begin strengthening your family's emotional health one interaction at a time.

We all hear that emotional regulation is key to healthy development. How many of us grew up in homes developed enough to even recognize what healthy emotions look like? Homes of preschool children in the height of their emotional stages tend to be homes with consistent bubbling over of feelings. Here are 3 starting points to check the pulse of your home’s emotional heartbeat. 

Are You Reacting or Responding?

When events occur- messes, ouchies, tantrums, etc., do you find yourself reacting or responding? One of the quickest ways to tell the difference is to ask yourself, “What is my thought process when that happens?” If your answer is something like, Well I assess how bad the injury is, if they are crying from pain or for comfort, how can I help them co-regulate… , you are most likely responding. If your answer is simply, I don’t know, you are most likely reacting. Our littles learn to mirror behaviors of emotional regulation long before they can master the brain processes that get us to healthy responses. 

Who Is in Control of Your Emotions?

There’s a fancy psychology phrase that describes our sense of control over our being and our emotions called locus of control. That sense of control can be broken down into internal vs external. Do you feel you are in charge of and responsible for your own emotions and the choices you make with them? Or do you feel emotions are based on what happens to you and outside your control? This will affect whether you look at your emotions as part of a process you have anything to do with or something you are along for the ride for. A balanced healthy approach to emotions includes recognizing and identifying them as well as giving them safe, responsible options to handle them. 

Is Your Goal to Fix or Help Your Child Regulate?

This one has to do specifically with what a parent views as the goal of problem solving an emotional outburst from their little one. Your precious toddler is losing their marble in frustration over not being able to solve a problem. Is the goal to fix the issue, or is it to regulate the emotions, increase frustration tolerance and process through the situation? Often as loving parents, our instincts are to rescue our littles from their source of pain. While natural, this tendency short cuts necessary development that needs to happen for much bigger things that we may or may not be present. Outside of obvious danger or risk to injury, the goal of emotional dysregulation is healthiest being regulation and processing. 

Small Changes Create Emotionally Healthy Families

Measuring emotional wellbeing will look different for every family. Taking the time to evaluate where you are with reactions, responses, sense of control and perceived goal of solving emotional moments can give good indicators of where there is emotional health or great places to start growing.

Healthy emotional habits begin with everyday moments. The People Grower equips parents with practical, research-informed tools to nurture emotional resilience, strong relationships, and confident children. Explore more parenting resources or connect with us to learn more.