Infant Mental Health

SECTION 1

Infant Mental Health

Main Points

It is very important that we have a very clear idea about what exactly infant mental health is. To most of the extent, it is us, the provider and care taker of the child who have it in our hands to shape their metal or emotional health. And it is us who judge their mental health and not the child who goes up to a psychiatrist and tells him about his mental health problems. An infant's mental health is a reflection of both, his emotional capacities to the society and the relationship that the infant has with his primary caretaker till the age of 5. His primary caretakers can be the infant's birth parents, or adoptive parents, or relatives etc. Who ever the primary care taker is, it is very crucial that they have a very tender and a loving relationship with the child because these early first 5 years form the basis of their later development. (Briere, 2005)

Taking care and giving due importance to the mental health of infants is very important because it is the initial years of the infant that are most crucial for his emotional and mental development. Healthy socio emotional development and mental development is the key to a successful life of the infant. In the first few years of his life, an infant grows and changes at a very fast pace. And as they grow older, their relationships with other people and their feelings become more and more complicated, so they require their parents and all the other important people of their lives to help them to manage their feelings.

The mental health of an infant can positively be nurtured through loving relationships with them. Loving relationships definitely have a huge hand in developing and improving emotional development and mental health. When infants are treated with love and kindness and care, they get the feeling of being secure and this feeling of security enables them to move forward and try out new things. The more they explore, the more successful they are bound to get in life. Therefore, the feeling of security, kindness and love is very necessary for the development and the future success of the toddler. (Cawson et al, 2000)

If an infant does not get a healthy relationship in his early years that are required for the nurturing of his emotional and mental development, he is bound to react in some way. How an infant reacts to the missing healthy relationship depends on each individual infant and the situation that these infants find themselves in. Some children tend to develop sleeping or eating disorders, some get very sad, depressed and lethargic and feel rejected, some infants tend to get aggressive and hostile not allowing anyone to comfort them.

To help a child in improving his emotional development, we can keep the child under nurturing relationships, develop and environment of kindness and trust so that the infant feels secure, try to understand and react to the infant's cues and comfort ...