Is it the job of parents to keep their children happy at all times? No, says Dr John Lambie, Reader in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. It is more important for mental health to validate negative emotions and trying to keep someone else happy can be a form of invalidation. What is emotional validation? Validation would be to say, for example, “You look sad” rather than the invalidating “Don’t be sad. Cheer up”. Dr Lambie discusses research which shows that emotional validation leads to better emotional awareness and better mental health in children. Given increasing levels of poor mental health in children, this timely talk explains how parents can be more emotionally validating and why this matters.

This talk was part of a launch event for My First Emotions, a toolkit for helping parents teach young children about emotions and how to cope with them.

For more information on John Lambie’s research, visit: anglia.ac.uk/science-and-technology/about/psychology/our-staff/john-lambie

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