The Benefits of High Emotional Availability on a Child's Future

After many years of research and observation of interactions between parents and children, the importance of emotional availability in the healthy development of children has become very clear.  A few benefits of the effects of high emotional availability are the following:

• Children from emotionally available homes have better peer relationships.

• Infants and children who have emotionally available relationships with their parents are more likely to also show the secure pattern of attachment.

• Children who have emotionally available relationships with their parents are less aggressive and less likely to be the targets of aggression from other children.  They are also more socially skilled and less excluded by their peers.

• Children who have emotionally available relationships with their parents are more attentive in school and are seen by teachers as suffering less from the effects of learning-related issues.

• Children from emotionally available homes seem to relate better with their teachers, engaging in less conflict with them as well as undue dependency.