What is the Emotional Support Kids Need
This continues the discussion on emotional support where I left on on mommy and daddy issues. If you haven’t, I encourage you to read the prior posts.
So what is this emotional support and emotional health kids need? Isn’t providing for their schooling, food, clothing, shelter, and taking them to their practices and games enough? Legally, probably. But I mean these are our children. When we speak of being a good parent and good parenting in general we’re not looking for the checkboxes a lawyer would give. Are we? Of course not.
We’re wanting to be the best parents we can be and raise the best humans we can raise. Like my now 20 year old daughter said, parents should raise kids so that when the kids are grown they want to hang out with the parents. And I said we should raise kids we want to hang out with. We’re both on point.
I realized this was an issue for me with my son. I’m still working on this. Yes, I’m still learning and growing as a parent too. It dawned on me when I was learning about the impact of my own traumas that my son probably had his. I had been studying attachment styles and realized my own.
I’d been trying to figure out my son and why he seemed to have trouble trusting his parents. My daughter had no problems. We met their needs, were always available to talk. I just didn’t understand. Until I started reading and studying up on attachment theory. My heart sank.
Read the next part of this discussion on postpartum depression (publishes March 10).