Childhood Nurturing: The Foundation Of Emotional Fitness

Imagine you are a gardener tending to a young seedling, with the hope of nurturing it to become a robust, thriving plant. At this early stage, the seedling is delicate, and its future growth is contingent on the care it receives.
You must ensure the soil is rich and nourishing, the sunlight ample but not overwhelming, and the water provided in just the right amount. If any of these essential elements are lacking or unbalanced, the plant may struggle to grow, becoming weak or failing to reach its full potential.

This same principle applies to human development, especially during the earliest stages of life. Much like that fragile seedling, a child’s foundational years—both in the womb and in the early years after birth—are critically important to their overall development and well-being. These years are when the roots of both their physical and emotional health are established.

These formative years are when they are most vulnerable, much like a plant that has just begun to sprout. The care and nurturing they receive—or don’t receive—during this time will have lasting effects. If they don’t receive appropriate physical care, this lack of nurturing can result in significant challenges throughout their life. Malnutritioned children can experience stunted growth, those who don’t get enough vitamin D can develop rickets, and children exposed to secondhand smoke are more susceptible to respiratory issues.

Just as these experiences of lack of physical nurturing have long-lasting effects for children, so too does a lack of emotional nurturing. Just as they need food and shelter, children have fundamental nurturing needs to feel safe, secure, and supported in their development. The psyche of children as they grow is every bit as fragile as their bodies. And the effects of insufficient nurturing of their existential needs can be just as profound: if their emotional needs aren’t being met, it directly impacts their overall sense of security and safety in the world, and even their fundamental feeling of belonging in the universe as a whole and value as a person in general. 

Every experience a child has during these formative years helps shape their understanding of the world. Much like a plant’s development depends on its surroundings, a child’s sense of security and safety is influenced by their interactions and the care they receive. Whether it’s the comforting embrace of a parent, the calming effect of a lullaby, or the reliability of regular feeding and nurturing, each of these moments strengthens the child’s feeling of belonging and safety in their environment.

However, if these needs are not met, just as a plant might wither without adequate sunlight or water, a child’s development can be compromised. The impact of these early experiences is profound and far-reaching. They lay the groundwork for how the child will perceive the world as they grow — whether they will see it as a safe, nurturing place where they belong, or as a threatening, unwelcome environment fraught with challenges and hostility.

As we explore the crucial role of nurturing, it’s essential to remember that these early years are not just a phase to be passed through, but a critical period that shapes the very foundation of a person's sense of self and place in the universe. Just as a young plant requires the right balance of sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow strong and healthy, we too, as individuals, need the proper nurturing during our most vulnerable stages to ensure we can thrive.

How Prenatal Trauma Shapes a Child's Future
Before a child is born, they spend their first 9 months of existence knowing only one reality - their mother’s womb. She is like a ship in which they are a passenger. For all involved, the best case scenario is that this “ship” is on smooth waters and having a safe, pleasant, and uneventful voyage.

In real terms, this means that the mother is healthy, happy, supported, and content with the reality of her situation in life. She is free from any significant stressors, harm, or ill health and is leading an empowered life where she can do what is best for herself and her unborn child.

From the mother’s perspective, this is essential. To live her best life possible, having a high level  of personal strength, serenity, and agency is absolutely vital to her overall health and happiness. This holistic sense of wellbeing also happens to be in the best interest of her child - both during pregnancy and beyond. 

Unborn babies rely on their mothers for all their needs—nourishment, warmth, protection, etc. This profound connection means that an unborn baby is acutely sensitive to the mother’s emotional and physical state. Just as a passenger on a ship is affected by the conditions of the ship and turbulent water during the journey, an unborn child is influenced by the health and experiences of the mother, particularly when those experiences are traumatic.

Unborn babies, with all their vulnerability, are very much susceptible to trauma, even despite their inability to consciously understand the world around them. When a mother experiences trauma during pregnancy—whether it be stress, fear, physical distress, etc—the baby receives biochemical signals that convey this distress in utero. In essence, the mother's sense of threat is transferred to the child, teaching them from the very beginning whether or not reality is not a safe place. The womb, which should ideally be a sanctuary of safety and growth, can become a source of stress and insecurity if the mother faces significant emotional or physical challenges.

If the mother is experiencing distress, this early transfer of fear and anxiety can lay the groundwork for the child’s baseline perception of the world, since their sense of safety and belonging begins forming from their first impressions of the world around them. 

It is clear then that every person’s earliest perceptions of the world are closely tied to the well-being of their mother, highlighting why women’s empowerment is crucial not just for themselves, but for any children they may choose to have. When women are disempowered, marginalized, abused, or unsupported, it affects their physical and emotional well-being, creating ripple effects that extend far beyond the mother as an individual. Unfortunately, far too many women experience significant challenges in life in general and during pregnancy in particular, resulting in incredible distress and danger for the women and their children during these vulnerable times. For the gestating children of women in these challenging situations, the trauma they experience in utero can create a powerful and negative first impression of reality that can affect them throughout their lives.

While mothers are uniquely influential due to the nature of human gestation, their circumstances aren’t the only factors at play in the development of a person’s baseline sense of safety and belonging in the world. The scientific study of epigenetics suggests that trauma can be passed down through generations, from both mothers and fathers. Epigenetics examines how behaviors and environments can cause changes that affect the way genes work. It appears that these changes, while not altering the genetic code itself, might still be inherited by future generations. This implies that the impact of emotional and physical experiences of parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents could be passed down through the generations, shaping how a child today responds to the world emotionally.

Multigenerational trauma, therefore, highlights the deep and lasting impact of past generations on a child’s emotional health. A family history of unresolved trauma can predispose a child to heightened sensitivity to stress, anxiety, and fear, long before they have the ability to comprehend these emotions or their origins.

By understanding these intricate connections, it becomes clear that nurturing a child’s development isn’t just about the experience of the child in the present. The experiences of the mother and the ancestral lineage of both parents play a crucial role in shaping the emotional landscape of the child even before they are born, making it imperative that we recognize and support the emotional well-being of all parents as a vital part of nurturing healthy, resilient generations.

How Early Nurturing Shapes Emotional Fitness
By the time a child reaches about the age of five, the foundation of their personality is largely set – especially their sense of self. This makes their early years so crucial, as they establish the emotional framework of the child throughout their life. 

During these formative years, a child is like a sponge, absorbing everything from their environment — how they are treated by their caregivers, the consistency of their care, and the emotional tone of their surroundings. Every hug, every soothing word, every moment of attention, or conversely, every instance of neglect, every unmet need, contributes to the development of their sense of self and their view of the world.

If a child’s fundamental needs for love, security, and acceptance are consistently met, they are likely to develop a strong sense of self-worth and emotional resilience. They will grow with the confidence that they belong in the world, that they are valued, and that their needs are important. However, when these needs are unmet—whether due to neglect, emotional unavailability, or inconsistency—the child is left with gaps in their emotional foundation.

When the fundamental nurturing a child needs is insufficient, the trauma of those experiences persist throughout life. The need for nurturing and acceptance is as essential as oxygen to a young child who perceives a lack of appropriate caring as a genuine risk to their wellbeing. Children are so utterly dependent on their caregivers for survival that it is truly a matter of life or death if the child is not properly cared for. While children don’t intellectually have the capacity to understand this, they have a natural and intuitive understanding that their wellbeing is dependent on receiving the attention and nurturing of their caregivers.

When a child’s fundamental needs for love, safety, and acceptance go unmet, the emotional consequences are profound and long-lasting. In their quest to cope with these unmet needs, children often experience a deep sense of sadness, fear, guilt, and shame. They grow up with a pervasive sense of incompleteness, insecurity, and disconnection. This feeling of "something is missing" becomes the focal point of an individual’s efforts and attention, dominating their emotional landscape and influencing almost every aspect of their life. In many instances, they often internalize the experience of poor nurturing as a deficiency in themselves. This perception is not just fleeting feelings—it becomes embedded in the child’s psyche, shaping their self-image and how they interact with the world.

To navigate this painful self-perception as somehow deficient, many children develop a false version of themselves—a mask that they wear to fit in or gain the nurturing they so desperately crave. This false self is a survival mechanism, a way for the child to present an image they believe will be more acceptable to others and get the care, attention, and love they so desperately need. Whether it’s acting out to get attention, becoming overly compliant to avoid rejection, or suppressing their true feelings to maintain peace, these behaviors are all attempts to fill the void left by unmet needs and become “worthy” of the nurturing they so urgently need.

However, this strategy comes at a cost. By hiding their true selves, children may gain temporary relief or acceptance, but they lose touch with their authentic identity. The emotional wounds caused by unmet needs don’t simply disappear; they remain unresolved, festering beneath the surface. As the child grows into adulthood, their persistent feelings of not being good enough or not worthy of care continue to influence their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, often in ways that are difficult to understand or control. A child who didn’t receive adequate nurturing during these critical years may spend much of their life searching for the validation and security they missed. This search can manifest in various ways, often leading to behaviors that are inappropriate or self-destructive as the individual tries to fill the void left by unmet needs.

For instance, an adult who lacked sufficient emotional support as a child might continuously seek approval from others, engage in unhealthy relationships, or exhibit clingy or dependent behaviors. They might develop coping mechanisms, such as substance abuse, as a way to numb the pain of these unmet needs. In essence, they are trying to meet their childhood needs long after the appropriate time has passed, often without realizing the root of their behaviors.

The drive to seek out the nurturing that was missed is powerful and can dominate much of a person’s life. It can lead to patterns of behavior that seem destructive or out of place, but when viewed through the lens of early childhood experiences, they make perfect sense. The unmet needs from those early years are deep seated wounds that can be triggered every time they receive a message that is anything less than absolute affirmation. When triggered by messages of rejection or failure, they are thrown back to the early experience of insufficient nurturing, feeling and acting like a young child denied their basic nurturing needs.

Adults who didn’t receive sufficient nurturing during their formative years may find themselves stuck in patterns of behavior that seem childish or regressive. These behaviors are not random; they are outdated responses that were established in early childhood, resurfacing in times of stress or insecurity. For some, this may manifest as seeking out unhealthy relationships where they can replay the dynamics of their childhood, hoping to finally get the validation they missed. For others, the behavior may be more literal, such as reverting to childhood comforts like thumb-sucking or needing to be coddled. These behaviors highlight the powerful grip that unmet childhood needs can have on an individual’s life. Even when those needs are no longer appropriate or necessary, the drive to fulfill them persists, often leading to disruptive behaviors and an ongoing struggle with self-worth.

Others may suffer from more internalized maladaptive responses, such as anxiety, depression, or chronic feelings of emptiness. These emotional states become the default setting, making it difficult for the individual to live fully in the present as they are constantly being triggered or are working to avoid triggering situations. 

Breaking this cycle requires more than just superficial changes in behavior. True transformation begins by confronting and healing these early emotional scars, enabling individuals to shift their focus away from seeking external validation based on wounds of the past, and towards living more fully and authentically in the present.

The Role of Parents & Society in Nurturing
As we’ve seen, parents play an incredibly influential role in shaping the emotional foundation of their children. Optimal parenting requires parents to provide the emotional, physical, and psychological support that a child needs to grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult.

However, the reality is that parents themselves often face a myriad of life challenges—stress, financial pressures, personal struggles—that can impede their ability to offer the level of nurturing their children require.

Life's difficulties can be overwhelming, and even the most well-intentioned parents may find themselves stretched too thin, emotionally drained, or preoccupied with their own issues. When parents are grappling with the significant stresses of life and their own unresolved issues, it can be incredibly challenging to be fully present and responsive to their child’s needs. This doesn’t mean that these parents don’t love or care for their children, but rather that their ability to nurture effectively is compromised by the weight of their own burdens.

This dynamic creates a difficult cycle: a parent who is struggling emotionally may inadvertently pass on their stress and anxiety to their child, who in turn may develop their own emotional difficulties as a result. Children are very perceptive; they pick up on their parent’s moods, worries, and emotional states, often internalizing them as their own. When a parent is not emotionally well, it can lead to a home environment that feels unstable or unsafe, impacting the child’s sense of security and self-worth. This can be very harmful to the emotional development of a child as they may feel responsible for looking after their parent’s emotional needs, which can lead to very unhealthy relationship dynamics between parents and children.

The best thing a parent can do for their child, therefore, is to prioritize their own emotional well-being. Just as the popular saying goes, "you can’t pour from an empty cup," a parent who is emotionally depleted will struggle to provide the nurturing their child needs. Taking steps to address personal challenges is not just important for the well-being of parents as individuals; it has tremendous benefits for any children in the family as well.

When parents are emotionally healthy and resilient, they are better equipped to create a nurturing environment for their children. They can offer the consistent love, support, and guidance that children need to thrive. Moreover, emotionally well parents model healthy behaviors and emotional regulation, teaching their children by example how to navigate life’s inevitable challenges.

In essence, a parent’s emotional health is inextricably linked to their child’s. The more a parent invests in their own well-being, the more they are able to nurture and support their child, setting them up for a healthier, happier life. Unfortunately, this is not always easy to do, especially in the construct of modern society.

In many traditional societies, the responsibility of nurturing a child was not solely placed on the parents. Instead, it was a communal effort, where the entire village, tribe, or extended family played a role in raising the young. This collective approach to child-rearing created a secure and supportive environment in which both the parents and children could thrive. The presence of multiple caregivers provided support for the parents and gave the children a rich environment of emotional and social experiences, helping them develop a strong sense of belonging, security, and connection. 

In these historical settings, a child was rarely left alone or deprived of attention, and parents had a wealth of caring and trusted adults to help share the load. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and neighbors all contributed to the child's upbringing, offering different perspectives, skills, and emotional support. This community-based approach ensured that the child’s needs were met, even if the parents themselves were facing challenges. The diverse network of caregivers acted as a buffer against the stresses and strains that any single individual might experience, preventing those challenges from spilling over into the child's emotional world.

However, as society has modernized, these communal structures have largely faded away in the western world. Today, the nuclear family is often isolated from the broader community, and the responsibility of nurturing falls almost exclusively on the parents alone. This shift has placed an enormous burden on parents, who must now juggle the demands of work, household responsibilities, and the emotional needs of their children, often with little to no support from extended family or community networks.

The result is that many parents find themselves overwhelmed, struggling to meet the complex needs of their children while also managing their own lives. The pressures of modern society—economic challenges, long working hours, the expectation to ‘do it all’—can leave parents isolated and stressed. Without the communal support systems that once existed, families are left to flounder in isolation, which will inevitably make it harder to provide the level of nurturing that would be naturally abundant in our ancestral environments. 

The unfortunate reality is that even though our society has changed drastically from our evolutionary past, our biological wiring has not changed to match these new social constructs. Therefore, people today need as much communal support and nurturing as they did in more primitive times, but we live in a world where accessing that kind of support is virtually impossible. 

Many children today therefore often miss out on the diverse emotional and social inputs that a broader community of caregivers could provide. The lack of additional supportive figures means that a child’s world is often limited to the immediate family, which may be under significant strain. This can result in a less stable environment, where the parents are struggling and the child's needs are not fully met, leading to feelings of insecurity and disconnection.

There is no easy way to address these systemic challenges, but recognizing they exist and the impact that they have is a crucial first step. No parent in the natural world would ever be expected to raise their children in the levels of isolation that they find themselves in today. 

Being a parent is simply a profoundly challenging task in the modern world. This is why it’s incumbent upon all parents to do everything in their power to build their own emotional fitness in order to be prepared to handle the challenges they will inevitably face – making them strong for themselves and for their children. It’s also incredibly important for people to do what they can to surround themselves with supportive community members – family, friends, neighbors etc. Creating a broader base of support can help alleviate the pressure on parents and provide children with the richly nurturing environment they need to thrive.

Healing the Roots: Addressing Trauma and Nurturing Deficiencies
The emotional landscape of the growing child is highly fragile but usually thankfully resilient. Even those who have experienced significant forms of abuse or neglect are able to overcome these painful challenges, and the wounds caused by unmet needs in early childhood do not have to define a person’s life.

With understanding, compassion, and the right tools, these wounds can be healed, allowing individuals to grow beyond the limitations imposed by their past.

Techniques such as Emotional Updating offer a path to reprocess and update our responses due to even our earliest traumas. By revisiting these foundational experiences with the resources and perspective of adulthood, individuals can update their emotional responses to fit their present-day realities. This process is akin to carefully tending to the roots of a struggling plant, ensuring they are healthy and robust enough to support growth. When we heal these roots, we enable new growth, allowing our true selves to flourish.

Empowerment through awareness is also a vital part of breaking the cycle of nurturing deficiency. Just as a well-nurtured plant grows tall and resilient, so too do individuals who are emotionally supported and empowered.  This healing process is not just about addressing the past but also about empowering parents—especially mothers—to be emotionally fit. When parents are supported and emotionally healthy, they are better equipped to nurture their children, breaking the cycle of trauma and ensuring that the next generation has the strong, secure foundation they need to thrive.

The journey of addressing and healing trauma is much like the careful cultivation of a plant. It requires attention, care, and a deep understanding of what the plant needs to grow. By tending to our emotional roots, nurturing our well-being, and empowering ourselves and others, we can ensure that our personal growth is not stunted by the past. Instead, we can grow tall, strong, and resilient, fully capable of thriving in the present and blooming into our fullest potential.