By Alexandra Sakellariou, Babygaga, October 11, 2020
Mental health is important no matter what age you are, which is why it’s important for parents to be aware of their infant’s mental health. Early interactions with our environment and those in it greatly shape our emotional well-being, including our ability to process and express emotions in addition to forming and maintaining relationships with others. It’s important that parents and caregivers are aware and attentive to a young child’s mental health and work towards creating a stable environment that is most conducive to their health emotional development. Keep reading to discover the signs caregivers should watch out for and what they can do to ensure their infant or young child’s mental health.
What Is Infant Mental Health (& Why Does It Matter)?
Infant mental health encapsulates the mental health of children from 0 to 3 years old and is also referred to as early childhood mental health. Young children, even newborns, learn how to express their emotions from their caregivers, making it important that they’re taught to manage their feelings in a healthy way. As such, the relationship parents and other caregivers have to the child plays an important role in shaping their mental health in early childhood, which will have ramifications later in life.
Our mental health is not only shaped by our physiological make-up or genetic history. Rather, this alongside our environment greatly impacts a person’s emotional well-being, both in the now and into the future. “The potential of each child is realized through the interaction of genes and the environment. It is not either nature or nurture, but nature × nurture,” a study published in Paediatr Child Health in 2016 explained. “The genes wait and listen to the environment, whether in the home or in childcare. Each child’s environment and experiences define the world and, consequently, ‘customize’ their brain.”
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