Nurturing Children’s Well-Being

Abstract

Too many children today are being diagnosed with affective mood disorders and then medicated. Yet because the child’s experience of self and world takes place in the medium of the family system, parents can learn how to mitigate childhood mood disorders by creating an environment based on child development principles that nurtures the child’s well-being. As discussed by Erik Erikson and Francis Wicks, adults tend to project their own unresolved and unconscious emotions onto their children. This article posits a developmental response to the diagnosis–treatment medical-model perspective that pervades modern-day psychiatry. Well-being flourishes in both child and adult when the adult understands child development principles, communicates with the child in developmentally appropriate ways, and creates environments that nurture the child’s developmental imperatives. When those developmental imperatives are met, emotional problems can be prevented before they arise. When an adult who is motivated by care in relationship with a child can learn how to nurture the child’s developmental needs, then it is likely that subsequent intersubjective experiences may be affected positively.