05 Dec Emotional Safety? How to ensure your kids feel safe on the inside

By: Bailey Brewer

While we all know it’s important to keep kids safe physically, it’s also important to know how to keep kids safe emotionally. Emotional safety is the safety you feel on the inside. Just like how kids need the bare necessities (food, water, shelter), kids also need to feel safe with the people around them. Making sure kids feel safe is not as easy as providing them with things that they need, it also involves being aware of your daily interactions and conversations with them.

Here are some important things to consider when thinking about ensuring your kids feel emotionally safe:

• Kids thrive with consistency
  • • Kids respond well to having a daily routine to follow
    • Providing kids with predictable routines promotes consistency and predictability
• Importance of play
  • • Kids need opportunities to play and be creative
    • Kids can benefit by having time to play alone, with other kids, and with caregivers. Plus, it helps parents bond with their kids when you play together! 
• Positive experiences
  • • Providing your kid with positive experiences in childhood can help prevent negative outcomes later in life
    • Kids need to feel loved, cared for, heard, and supported
• Communication is key
  • • Kids look to their parents and other adults in their lives to understand the world around them. Demonstrating positive behaviors with your kid can help promote positive behaviors for your kid. This includes:
      • • • Positive parenting practices
          • Positive behaviors with kid and others
          • Teaching kids healthy relationship skills
          • Teaching kids about and demonstrating how to handle difficult emotions
  • Kids are people, too! Kids benefit from being comfortable and able to tell you things and have open conversations about topics
  • Being open and communicative with your kids builds trust and helps show them that they are valued as people
  • Teach your kids about boundaries and demonstrate healthy boundaries with your kids

Here are 6 things you can do today to help your kid feel more safe and some tips from Kentucky parents and kids:
Set up a nighttime routine with your kid and allow them to (reasonably) have a say in what they do and when they do it
– Here’s a bedtime storybook you can use with your kids!
– KY kid, 6: We all pray together before we get tucked in and say “Amen.”

Share the love! Tell your kid you love them and express your love more often
– Parent Comment: “Saying “I love you”, “good morning”, and “goodnight” each day helps start and end the day with love and an acknowledgement”
– Parent Comment: “I wrote what I know now as affirmations on my mirror as a teenager. I used positive self talk.”
– Parent Comment: “More outward/vocal expressions of love (some examples include- more hugs, more smiling, more SAYING I love you.”
– KY kid, 9: “Being nice/kind when I’m sad”
– KY kid, 16: “Listening to me without judgment, no matter what emotion I’m expressing”

Give your kid an affirmation on their character or personality or compliment them on something they did that day
– Parent Comment: “Sending texts throughout the day with well wishes, very often (like daily) saying I love you and I appreciate you to my daughters, frequently acknowledging the positive/helpful things they do, and being supportive and available.”

Ask your kid about their day – did it go well, their favorite thing about their day, something that made them smile or laugh that day
– Parent Comment: “I ask “How are you” almost every day instead of just “How was your day” because my daughter pointed out that I wasn’t asking about her”

Set aside 30 minutes to play with your kid – let them take the lead and be creative
– Parent Comment: “Before bedtime, we play “the sillies” and play around making funny animal sounds and laughing together. They have some wild animal sounds!”

Have a conversation with your kid using only open-ended questions (Open ended questions are questions that do not end in a simple “yes” or “no” answers) and really listen to their answers
– Parent Comment: “My child tells me it’s important to listen to them without judgment, no matter what emotion I’m expressing.