Babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents all have the same emotional needs. Meeting these needs in childhood provides the foundation for success in school, work, relationships, marriage and life in general. Failure to meet the emotional needs of our children is one of the most serious and under-recognized problems facing our country.
How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children, a parenting guide by Gerald Newmark, PhD, shows parents and teachers how to nourish emotional health at home and at school. This book enables parents to recognize and satisfy the critical emotional needs that all children have: to feel respected, to feel important, to feel accepted, to feel included, and to feel secure and, in the process, parents will have their own needs satisfied too.
Through a program called the Salinas Project, the book will now be incorporated into the curriculum of all 12 schools in the Salinas City Elementary School district and given to any interested parent for free. This is part of a larger plan to encompass the entire citizenry of Salinas, including all segments of society: business, education, civic, social, and medical organizations, and the at-risk and gang communities. Through such an effort, emotional health can be sown into the fabric of daily living in Salinas.
The Salinas Project – Emotionally Healthy Cities (A 9-minute video of Dr. Newmark speaking to residents of Salinas, CA)
(This article originally appeared on CASP’s For Our Future / Para Nuestro Futuro website)
Our book How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children is available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle ebook in both English and Spanish.
The Children's Project 
First of all, let me say that I love this post.
I believe that we can have emotionally healthy school and communities if ALL of us do what is needed to ensure this. The problem is: Not all parents and teachers are on board. Although we have plenty of great parents and teachers, some people should not be parents and some teachers should not be in our classrooms. As an educator and parent, I wonder why some of the teachers that my daughter has had EVER became teachers. They appear not to like children, they do not have patience, scream at students, demean students, use sarcasm, put big huge red X marks on their papers, and believe it or not, we have teacher bullies in our classrooms.
Parents need to PARENT. We can become friends with our well-raised children once they become adults.
Parents must hug their children a lot and family units must become functional vs. dysfunctional.
Just yesterday I was in line at the grocery store. The man standing in line behind the woman that was directly behind me somehow coerced her into skipping in line. Once there, he tried to bully me out of my place. The clerk noticed that I could save money by choosing another meat instead of the one I’d chosen, and asked the lady who was bagging my groceries to stop and get the package of meat that would save me money.
This guy began to give me an evil look and used profanity. I had my 11 year old daughter with me. Did he care that he was being rude and disrespectful? Of course just looking at the guy made me cringe and want to throw up. He obviously was not a kind person and contributing man within our society. He was wearing low baggy pants (just to give you an idea). Sadly, we have far too many men who disrespect woman and children in our society, but we must ask ourselves — Why?
As Parents we must:
Not spoil our children
Instill a sense of remorse/care deep within them
Ensure that they learn to respect others
Role model ethics and hard work before them
Give them guidelines, expectations, rules and regulations
Expect that they will obey the laws of the land – Are we doing the same?
Once I saw the movie “The Hand That Rock the Cradle.” If you’ve seen this movie, you’ll realize the power of a woman, a Mom. We can do lots to mold and make our children into whatever we want them to become, but remember it works both ways. If we want tyrant, dysfunctional, disrespectful children, we can mold and make these, too.
I believe that the hands that rock the cradle rules the world. Let’s parent and help remove bad teachers out of our classrooms. They do not help our children affirm that they are wonderful, worthy, intelligent beings who will one day be honorable citizens of our society.
Note: I’m not speaking of our sweet little children who can’t help their emotional status such as children who are Autistic and/or mentally challenged. God will help us take care of these babies.
Thank you Cherrye for visiting our site and sharing your insights. It is always a gift to connect with kindred spirits on the journey to raising emotionally healthy children, families, schools, communities. I know you are making a difference in the lives of many!