Although there is a lot of debate among child development experts over the various methods of child rearing, there is general agreement that children must have their core emotional needs met in order to mature in healthy ways.

Parents need to nurture their children - to provide emotional nourishment - in ways that enable the children to experience self-esteem and go on to fulfil their potential.

The following are 10 important 'nurturing principles':

1. Attention

It is essential that both parents are emotionally available for the child. The idea that children need nurturing primarily from their mothers is no longer valid; they need ample emotional attention from their fathers as well.

It is important that parents develop a daily routine of focused interaction with each of their children - because individual quality time is what makes them feel valuable to their parents, deep within their hearts.

Fulfilling children's need for attention is a key component of instilling high self-esteem, and helps cement the parent-child bond.

2. Understanding

We all know how important it is to feel understood by our loved ones. Children are no exception. With understanding comes a deep feeling of trust between parent and child, which allows children to confide in their parents about any problems they may be facing, rather than hide them out of fear of a negative reaction.

Moreover, understanding a child's inner life forms the foundation for effectively influencing his or her emotional growth. When parents are willing to listen to and empathise with their children's daily challenges, it provides them with an open window to their soul.

And now armed with these new insights, they can make the best possible decisions about what they need from them in order to overcome their problems: such as more reassurance when they are feeling insecure; help in thinking more clearly about a confusing issue; or more guidance or discipline when they are having trouble maintaining control.

3. Expressed love

Enthusiastic parental expressions of delight and support provide vital emotional nourishment for a child's developing sense of self-worth.

Since children base their self-concept on how they perceive their parents' feelings toward them, it is not enough simply to have these feelings; we must demonstrate our love for them on a regular basis throughout their early years and beyond.

It's easy to fall into the "My children know that I love them" trap. But love has no value unless it is given. So if we truly love our children we must make sure that we tell them often.

4. Inclusion

A child's healthy attachment to his or her parents is the first way that children learn to feel like welcome and valuable members of the human community. This core sense of belonging to the family group is what enables children to move confidently into the world at large and reach out to others in a spirit of good will and camaraderie, instead of feeling like social outsiders.

As our children mature, another aspect of inclusion is learned when they experience the satisfaction of having others depend on them. This is taught in the home by having each child be responsible for age-appropriate family duties.

5. Validation

All of our emotions - even the so-called negative ones - play pivotal roles in our emotional health. Therefore, children need to have all of their emotions validated (supported) - when expressed in appropriate ways - to ensure their proper development.

For example, it's true that children cannot have everything they want. But denying them the freedom to express their displeasure about it may cause their healthy anger to become repressed. Bottled up anger is usually expressed as intense rage sometime in the future.

Conversely, children who cannot seem to quell their own anger will need our help in learning how to maintain control. Through the use of soothing validation for their anger, these children will eventually begin to emulate our comforting tone in their own minds and thus learn to calm themselves down.

6. Structure

Parents who set ever-expanding "healthy limits" for their maturing children provide them with solid, yet flexible physical and psychological boundaries: safe havens in which to grow and thrive.

And children who are raised in these consistent, structured environments will have the best possible chance to develop positive feelings of self-worth, self-confidence and a sense of belonging.

In the overly permissive family, a child's self-esteem may suffer from the lack of emotional security which well-defined boundaries normally bring. At the other extreme, the oppressively rigid family system, our children's self-esteem may also suffer because they are not being given enough freedom to learn how to depend on their own resources and abilities.

A balanced environment of clearly defined and enforced limits that are fair, nonoppressive and sometimes negotiable is what seems to have the best overall effect on a child's self-esteem and psychological development.

7. Modelling

All children naturally take their cues from their parents about how to interact with others and function in the world.

This means that the most effective way to teach children emotionally healthy thoughts and behaviors - from relationship skills to the ability to deal with life's daily frustrations - is for parents to "model" emotional health for them.

It is vital that parents work to become as emotionally balanced as possible. After all, you can't give away something you don't have.

8. Power sharing

All emotionally healthy children will fight with their parents as they push to gain more personal freedom and control over their lives. This is the normal expression of a child's drive toward full independence in adulthood.

Power-sharing offers children "structured choices" as a way to guide them through the process of expanding their physical and psychological boundaries. If we as parents are willing to repeatedly renegotiate new boundaries with our maturing children - while resisting the urge to always dominate them in order to gain their cooperation, or always give in to them because we tire of arguing - we will be creating interactive, cooperative home environments, where our children can learn the critical life skills for balancing their own needs with the needs of others.

9. High expectations

If we want our children to develop the emotional and thinking skills necessary to accomplish their goals, it is essential that parents help them learn how to set goals and motivate themselves. Studies have shown that maintaining high expectations for children is the most effective tool that parents can use to help them become the best they can be.

Of course, this does not mean holding children to impossibly high standards, or scolding and punishing them when they do not perform well. In fact, even though they may continue to achieve in order to please us, demanding too much of our children usually destroys their optimism and desire to excel.

Instead, through the use of measured encouragement and praising, the feelings of self-confidence and inner satisfaction that our children will gain from their personal accomplishments will then motivate them to continue on, as they attempt to realise all of their life's dreams.

10. Personal empowerment

All human beings are fallible - but that doesn't mean we, as parents, just sit around and cop out to the tired excuse "that's just the way I am." If we have an emotional problem - be it inappropriate anger, emotional withdrawal, substance abuse, a pattern of attraction to unhealthy partners, you name it - we must muster the courage to face our challenges and then work diligently to improve ourselves. We understand that our children need us to be as emotionally strong and healthy as possible.

And so we may sometimes need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and do what needs to be done.

In this way, even if it is only within the small sphere of our family and personal relationships, we know that we are contributing to the well-being of future generations in ways we cannot even imagine.

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