Specialities - Foster an Emotionally Healthy Family
As children develop, their brains "mirror" their parent's brain. In other words, the parent's own growth and development, or lack of those, impact the child's brain. As parents become more aware and emotionally healthy, their children reap the rewards and move toward health as well.
Daniel J. Siegel
Throughout our life span, we absorb from significant relational experiences, the good and bad to form our internal working system of tending to our emotions and thoughts.
A child, even as a baby, is constantly seeking for a secure emotional connection and takes in your verbal as well as your non-verbal cues everyday to make sense of the world, of you and of themselves.
Some symptoms of not being emotionally available:
Little to no connection with your child
If you find yourself having difficulty enjoying or connecting with your child(ren) or if your child(ren) does not want to be around you indicated by crying or kicking, there are ways to be a better parent and forge strong, necessary emotional bonds.
Reliving old inter-generational wounds
You may have been a neglected child and have not experienced what a secure emotional connection is like because your parents did not know how or did a poor job. For this reason, you are knowingly or unknowingly passing down old wounds to your child(ren) and subsequently affecting your family dynamics with everyone.
Prenatal and Postpartum Changes
During a woman’s pregnancy, a woman experiences a myriad of physical, hormonal, mental and emotional changes. Around 15% of new moms will experience a varying degree of Baby Blues postpartum. Often natural remedies, proper diet, rest and exercise will help. Others find counseling, support groups, or spiritual practices helpful when feeling blue.
During pregnancy, rarer but more serious mental health problems than the transient, self-limiting Baby Blues may make their first appearance. Pregnancy is not the root cause but a risk factor. It is the neuroendocrine alterations and psychosocial stressors associated with pregnancy triggering the onset of an underlying illness in a genetically predisposed individual. Warning signs and symptoms consist of marked change in sleep, appetite and energy (too much or too little). Excessive sadness, harmful thoughts, loss of interest, difficulty in concentration, guilt, social withdrawal, impaired ability to self care and difficulty in bonding with the newborn are signals for counselling and / or medical physician care.
There are ways to foster an emotionally healthy child and family by first gaining personal healing and emotional connection
Can counselling psychotherapy help to foster emotionally healthy families?
With attachment-based experiential psychotherapy, you can be emotionally available and connected with your family members.
At Know Me Well, the approaches to supporting you in becoming a better parent, grandparent, provider, partner, sibling, or child includes:
- Uncover your own attachment styles and wounded parts of your childhood upbringing for personal healing to stop passing down to the next generation.
- Learn about your child(ren)’s attachment styles, emotional behaviors, love language and specific needs for connection.
- Appreciate the science of attachment theories and how to foster strong emotional bonds in early childhood stages.
- Rebuild a secure emotional bond for yourself and your family.
- Overcome baby blues and postpartum depressive moods.