Building healthy relationship with young people
Insights:
Parents/carers and teachers admit they often lack the capacity and time to effectively engage with children due to working hours, large workloads, and large class sizes. Developing healthy bonds with young people requires trusted adults to consistently create open, healthy spaces for them to talk honestly about their feelings.
Recommendation:
Invest time and create brave spaces for young people to express their feelings and make decisions; this will help to build trusted adult-child relationships.
Real world examples:
The Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (2021) highlights the importance of maintaining positive family relationships and a healthy home environment for young people to thrive.
EASY
Mindful Moves:
Once upon a time
GOAL: Foster trust and connection by showing your own vulnerability, helping your child see you as a real person with emotions.
To provide parents/carers with practical strategies to foster open, trusting, and supportive relationships with their children.
Share a personal story with your child about a time when you felt scared, happy, or uncertain and what you did next. Ask them to share a similar experience.
- Choose a place with limited distractions
- Ask the young person how they are doing and what they are focused on
- Share a relevant story if you have one
- Share a lesson from your experience for the young person to keep in mind
- Be mindful how you react to hearing the young person’s experiences
- Be mindful to share stories and experiences which are age appropriate
MEDIUM
Mindful Moves:
Emotional Balance
GOAL: Be open about emotions and show that its okay to talk about your feelings.
To provide parents and/or carers with practical strategies to foster open, trusting, and supportive relationships with their children.
Use a "feelings chart" to help both you and your child identify and discuss your emotions without oversharing. Each person can pick an emotion from the chart and explain why they feel that way.
- Take a look at this emotions chart here.
- Pick an emotion on how you are feeling right now
- Take turns to describe why you feel this way
Avoid making your child feel undue responsibility for your emotional state.