Do Happy Parents make Happy Children? Thoughts from a SoulKids® Mentor

I can say with confidence that what any parent desires for their children is nothing other than, happiness. Why do parents put so much pressure on their children to be intelligent, presentable and capable? So that they can picture the child, leading a swimmingly happy life. It's a traditional belief that someone who embodies all those qualities is bound to be happy. Research though, show us otherwise.

'Emotional contagion', which translates to emotional mirroring, is an involuntary ability each of us human beings have, since birth. What it does, is simply to cause unconscious mimicry of emotions felt by those we interact with.

In positive two people interaction for example, when person A feels joy and love, person B's amygdala (a part of the brain responsible for empathy) would involuntarily command emotional mimicry of the same joy and love, which will be re-communicated to person A, resulting in person A, expansion of the same feeling, so on and so forth. This is the very reason why positive interactions can be healing to the body and mind, whilst negative ones often spin out of control faster than either party can say 'dis-eases'. It is a known fact that negative emotions cause a fight or flight response in the person involved, and this in turn will cause a release of pro inflammatory proteins whose responsibility is linked to everything from cancer to heart diseases. During our pre-evolutionary days, inflammation was used to fight off infections that were often the result of fight or flight encounters. Since it is of no use to us now, whenever it is triggered it just sits in our body, accumulating in a very toxic way.

So let's backtrack to how we can make our children happy and healthy. The answer is simply, to be happy ourselves. As the closest influential figures in our children's lives, whenever we are loving and happy around them, their tiny little amygdala would command them to experience love and happiness all the same. Who knew it was that simple? Or is it? This means that the next time your child does something you don't approve of, ask yourself 'what emotional information am I sending to them that causes them to behave this way?' Sometimes our disapproval is enough to put them into a state of stress and fear, and when this happens, show them sincere affection and love them instead. Always remember that loving relationships are healing, while toxic ones as the word suggests, are toxic at a mental, emotional, as well as at a physical level.

"Eventually you will come to understand that Love heals everything, and Love is all there is"
—Gary Zukav