Healthy relationships are so important for children

Positive relationships support children's development and mental health. We – two scientists from different disciplines – shed light on how healthy relationships develop in childhood and how they affect later life from the perspective of our respective fields of research.

From the perspective of a developmental psychologist

A child's development takes place within a complex interplay of biology, emotional and cognitive psychology, society and the wider environment. The exact effect of each of these factors is not yet fully understood.

Parents who suffer from high levels of stress are less receptive to their children's needs.

Laura Bechtiger

However, decades of research have repeatedly shown that supportive relationships are a key element in a child's development. They also have a positive effect on their health in adulthood. For example, they can have a preventive effect with regard to the development of mental health problems or substance abuse.

Parents who are sensitive to their children's needs lay the foundation for their children's healthy development and well-being, which can have a long-term impact into adolescence and young adulthood. Parents who suffer from high levels of stress or severe depressive symptoms are less receptive to their children's needs and react more harshly when children misbehave.

They also frequently express difficulties with the numerous tasks that parents of young children have to perform. When parents' stress and depressive symptoms are reduced, their well-being improves. They become more supportive in their parenting, which strengthens the parent-child relationship .

Friendships become important

Once children start school, relationships with their peers become increasingly important. During puberty, friendships become an important source of emotional support. Friendships among young people are characterised by mutual trust and personal self-disclosure. This is how children learn basic socio-emotional skills such as recognising emotions in others.

In the process, they develop their ability to empathise, see things from the other person's perspective and resolve conflicts. The quality of friendships in adolescence is linked to well-being in adult life. For example, people who had deep friendships as teenagers tend to have better close and romantic relationships later in life. These people also generally fare better, both mentally and even physically.

However, the fundamental developmental processes linking supportive friendships to mental and physical health in adulthood have not been thoroughly researched. We still do not fully understand how supportive friendships in youth are related to health in adulthood.

Changing relationships

As children grow older, the importance of different relationships changes, although all types of positive relationships remain important throughout childhood and adolescence. Even though peer relationships and friendships become central to young people's well-being, a positive and supportive parent-child relationship remains important for teenagers' development, well-being and mental health .

Of course, the characteristics of friendships change from childhood to adolescence, as do the characteristics of the parent-child relationship. They are constantly readjusting themselves according to the needs of individuals and external circumstances. There is no one right way to be a good parent or a good friend.

From the perspective of a developmental neuroscientist

Throughout our lives, we interact with other people. Good relationships with family, friends and peers are important for our mental health, especially during childhood. In order to build good relationships and communicate successfully with different people, we rely on a range of socio-emotional skills.

We use these socio-emotional skills to recognise, understand and express emotions so that we can participate appropriately in social interactions and elicit desired responses from others. Socio-emotional skills develop early in life, in parallel with brain development.

Understanding the wishes and intentions of the other person

Mentalisation – the ability to take on the perspective of others – is a socio-emotional skill that develops early on. Nevertheless, it takes years to fully master this skill. Mentalisation enables children to understand their own feelings, thoughts, attitudes, desires and intentions, as well as those of other people.

Mentalisation is a complex process, and most children gradually develop the various skills that serve as building blocks for mentalisation. In infancy, for example, children learn to recognise faces and share attention by looking at an object at the same time as someone else.

Parents and young people who feel closely connected often react similarly to stress.

Plamina Dimanova

In early childhood, they learn to speak and improve their memory. These and many other skills help them to draw increasingly complex conclusions about other people's thoughts and feelings.

Neuroscientists can already observe mentalisation-related brain activity in three-year-old children. However, the network of brain areas involved in mentalisation becomes more specialised with age and forms a framework for many social skills that develop later on.

The role of caregivers

Early positive interactions between a caregiver and a child help the child to successfully navigate social situations and form healthy social bonds. If early relationships are positive and continue to develop, a child has a better chance of forming and maintaining friendships and building good relationships and partnerships later in life. Children who experience warm and supportive relationships with their parents are more likely to develop high-quality relationships with peers and romantic partners.

Children with a stronger bond to their mothers are better able to regulate their emotions when their mother is nearby. While controlling their emotions, these children show more mature brain activation in the amygdala, the area of the brain that is crucial for processing emotions. The parent-child relationship is particularly influential early in life, but remains important during the formative teenage years.

Parents and adolescents who feel closely connected often respond similarly to stress. This means that if parents can successfully reduce stress using strategies geared towards adapting to the situation at hand, children who feel closely connected to their parents are also likely to succeed in doing so. This can be observed in behaviour and brain activation and is ultimately associated with better mental well-being.

Strong and healthy social ties to family and friends, as well as a sense of connection and support, are important for our well-being.

Plamina Dimanova

As children grow up and expand their social network, relationships outside the close family circle become more important.

During the coronavirus pandemic, young people who were able to meet up with friends reported feeling happier. When young people look at photos of close friends, brain activity in the ventral striatum, an important area of the reward system, is stronger than when they look at people they dislike or are indifferent to.

Friends as a buffer against stress

In other words, seeing their friends feels like a reward for young people. Close bonds with and strong social support from peers can act as a buffer against stress during the teenage years.

In summary, strong and healthy social bonds with family and friends, as well as a sense of connection and support, are important for our well-being. To build such bonds, we need our socio-emotional skills, which develop early in life. Socio-emotional skills are shaped by the experiences of children and young people and are biologically anchored in the brain.