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Emotions are contagious and can affect how we think and respond to our children.

Children learn from us how to feel about feelings.

Our past experiences with challenging emotions can show up in our parenting.

Every parent has feelings. Some emotions we relish, like love, joy, pride, and excitement. Other emotions make us struggle, like frustration, anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and embarrassment.

Whether we like them, hate them, or ignore them, all these feelings are a normal part of being human—and they inevitably become part of the parenting experience.

Understanding our emotional lives can help us become more present, connected, and resilient parents.

Here are five reasons the emotional lives of parents matter for our own and our children’s well-being.

1. Emotions are contagious

Parents naturally have painful emotions like anxiety, fear, and anger. If we are not aware of them, these feelings can affect the people around us in non-verbal communications such as our tone of voice, facial expressions, and body posture. Without awareness and tools to work with our own feelings, we may be unwittingly communicating them to our child.

When children pick up on our emotions through our tone of voice and facial expressions, their nervous system responds. After all, we are wired for emotional communication starting from birth onward. So, for example, you may be angry at your boss,........

© Psychology Today