Book Nook: The Emotionally Healthy Child

While growing up has never been easy, today’s world undeniably presents kids and their parents with unprecedented challenges. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 25 percent of children experience anxiety and 14 percent have a mood disorder, and National Public Radio shares that as many as five million public school students have mental-emotional issues such as depression and anxiety.

In The Emotionally Healthy Child, Healy explains that emotional health is the ability to make better choices, even when feeling anger or another big emotion. She describes that the ability to — Stop, Calm, and Make a Smarter Choice — are key to expressing emotions constructively. While not always easy, these steps are powerful, and Healy shows readers exactly how to implement them so they can help children find equilibrium in the moment and build emotional well-being over the long-term.

Healy gives adults the ideas and real-life strategies they need to raise emotionally healthy children. Her book delves deeply into what children need to know, what children need to do, and what speeds up the process of emotional health. It also includes a toolbox full of mindfulness tools designed to help readers put the ideas throughout the book into practice.

I had a chance to interview Maureen to get some tips for parents.

• Why did you decide to write this book?

I wrote The Emotionally Healthy Child because more and more children were showing up to my office emotionally reactive, and not knowing how to handle their big emotions. But with the ideas and tools in my book they improved dramatically - and became emotionally healthier and more thoughtful in their responses.

• Why is emotional health sometimes overlooked by parents?

Because they're busy. Just today, I was chatting with two moms who admitted they're always rushing. They rush to school, rush to activities, and then rush to pick up their children.

•  What are some common things we do unintentionally that can harm our children's emotional health?

Losing our temper, which then gives children permission to do the same and spending too much time on devices, which models behavior that's not necessarily healthy.

• If parents were going to focus on one "big idea" to promote emotional health, what would it be?

That it's a skill to learn. Like building muscles in the gym takes practice, so does becoming emotionally healthy and happier.

Maureen Healy is the author of The Emotionally Healthy Child and also Growing Happy Kids, which won Nautilus and Readers’ Favorite book awards in 2014. A popular Psychology Today blogger and sought-after public speaker, Maureen runs a global mentoring program for elementary-aged children and works with parents and their children in her busy private practice. Her expertise in social and emotional learning has taken her all over the world, including working with Tibetan refugee children at the base of the Himalayas in Northern India to classrooms in Northern California.  Visit her online at http://www.growinghappykids.com.