By Volunteer Uppasana Baruah, FHI Guwahati
Human emotions are a complex pattern of arousal, subjective feeling, and cognitive interpretation. Emotions move us internally, and this process involves physiological as well as psychological reactions. The Mental Health Foundation defines emotional wellbeing as ‘a positive sense of wellbeing which enables an individual to be able to function in society and meet the demands of everyday life’.
The reason I started my article with the definition of emotion and emotional wellbeing is because these terms are usually trivialized and the concrete meaning somewhere gets distorted and hence their importance. Somewhere between life and vicissitudes of life, emotional wellbeing and emotional balance gets sidelined. Several factors account for influencing emotions, one such factor is interpersonal relationship.
What is interpersonal relationship?
It is the relationship shared between our family, friends, acquaintances, or others, on a personal level. These interpersonal relationships mould us from childhood to adulthood to old age. And they have a directly proportional relation to emotional health of an individual. To make it palpable, I’ll share this:
I am a very keen observer. I can notice even the tiniest detail in people’s behaviour or manner. And one thing I have noticed over the years, apparently, is that children who have had been exposed to a milieu, superfluous with lots of communication, good relations with close ones and so on, tend to be more adaptable, capable of getting along well with most people and seem extroverted. On the other side, children who seem to lack good interpersonal relationships, are likely to be demure, little less adaptive and find it little more difficult to break the ice easily in a new environment.
This, is what I observed. I also got to know more about the impacts of good interpersonal relationships and communication on people when I studied psychology in school and more or less, my observations and the impacts I studied were quite proximate.
Certainly, they do leave behind impacts on children. Giving children ambient environs of good communication, suitable surrounding and supportive relationships is utterly integral. It’s an all-important part of growing up and healthy development. For children to grow into responsible, social members of the community, it is imperative they grow up receiving support and trust from the relationships they form and the bondings they draw up. This will give them the strength needed to tackle trials and tribulations, to battle fleeting insecurities, to function and to combat the nth number of adversities, come what may.
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