Parents of young children at All Saints Church enjoyed a special workshop recently on “developing emotional security”. Members of the church’s Mothers Union branch facilitated the session for the “Wednesday Mums” group who meet weekly at the church.
A summary of the workshop follows written by Sue Howard, one of the church’s pastoral care team.
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A parent helps their child feel emotionally secure by ….
Giving time and attention
Keeping their “Emotional Bank Account” topped up
Speaking words that build up
Listening to them
Helping them express their feelings in words
Giving them some boundaries
An emotionally secure person is someone who ….
Feels LOVED and VALUED for who they are (not for what they achieve)
VALUES THEMSELVES (i.e. has healthy self-esteem)
Can handle their EMOTIONS well
Knows how far they can go (has BOUNDARIES)
We also took some time to do group discussions around Meeting Children’s Emotional Needs and looked at examples of these key areas:
Attention, Acceptance, Appreciation, Encouragement, Affection, Respect, Support, Comfort, Approval and Security.
We also talked about a LOVE POT – an idea where you have a “Family Pot” where you can add (credit) or take away (debit) marbles depending on all the family members actions day-by-day. I know from personal experience, that at marble jar helped immensely with helping my children (and me!) focus on rewarding good behaviour. This Family Pot, we all felt was a lovely idea too .. and can be used to focus ALL family members on their own behaviour and a great visual aid to show how well the communication and emotions are “handled” (for eg. Credits – Praise, & Help each other, gratitude towards each other & togetherness. Debits – Not being listened to, Not getting the attention, Negative behaviour)
We were handed out a paper about the Importance of Play.
And finally, the Mothers’ Union uses the term LOVE IS SPELT TIME .. which we all agreed was such a lovely saying…. Because time with us is what our children crave most of all.
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