everything around us is changing the way we interact the way we go about doing things moreover the pace at which all this is happening is startling so stop for a second and think how it is impacting the young generation those who are born in the time of social media youtube and a time when mental health issues are at an all time high while we all know that its important to keep communicating with your child we dont know how to go about it shikha singhal a working professional and a mother of 8yearold daughter shares i am so worried about all the external factors affecting my child that i tend to over protect her from everyone and everything however it has impacted her such that she finds it difficult to face situations on her own interestingly her daughter is a topper in school0314is your kid stressed outit is ironical that parents and academicians are so busy focusing on academic achievements of a child that they tend to ignore the most important part of their growing years emotional selfregulation there have been studies that have established that people with higher emotional intelligence have higher iqs and are more successful than people who are toppers in schools and colleges resilience is the one character trait thats lacking in most kids and thus making them prone to mental health issues we keep asking and encouraging our children to succeed but forget to teach them how to fail first of all it is important to understand how you respond to your childs emotions do you see their emotions as unimportant do you always disapprove negative emotions do you accept their emotions but try to align them to your expectations or do you value their emotions and use them as an opportunity to help them solve issues lets understand that sadness as an emotion can slow us down both emotionally and physically and a child should be nurtured to identify the source of their emotional issue and tackle itstress how soon can it occurit is relevant for parents to know that stress can impact the child ever since she is conceived in the womb stress can come from different sources at different developmental stages of child there are studies to show impact of stress in a pregnant mothers life poor prenatal care abuse depression etc on the childs physical and mental health early child abuse neglect and trauma has been also shown to have an impact once the child starts going to school stress can come from different aspects of their life increased academic demands parents expectations from the child to do well not only at school but in sports and extracurricular activities peer pressure to fit in and to be cool these pressures can often lead to feelings of low selfesteemconfidence development of anxiety disorders and depression particularly in teens shares dr leena khanzode stanford university adjunct clinical faculty and adviser mentor to moms beliefworking parents seem to find