Healthy Relationships

Children learn about relationships from their adult role models. So a child who grows up around healthy adult relationships is more likely to develop their own healthy relationships than one who sees unhealthy behaviours in the adults around them.

Children who experience domestic abuse are more likely to become abusive – or abused – within their own adult relationships than those who don’t. That’s why healthy relationships work is so important for professionals who work with children.

It’s about helping children and young people who’ve grown up seeing conflict or disagreement solved with abuse and violence to explore what they’d like from their own relationships and think about how their home life has affected their expectations.

Healthy relationships for children

Healthy relationships for children start from the beginning. They involve family relationships – between parents and children, between siblings, between adult couples and between wider family members. And they involve friendships – from school friends, to colleagues and other connections.

By working out what’s important to children and young people when it comes to their relationships – and by encouraging them to think about how they develop and maintain relationships – we can help children who have experienced unhealthy relationships to re-evaluate the way they see things.

Visit the Act On It website – www.actonitnow.co.uk – for more information about healthy relationships.

Monkey Bob and healthy family relationships

For very young children – especially those under seven who can’t always find the right words to express themselves – Monkey Bob can help children to talk about healthy family relationships. Monkey Bob lets children talk about their emotions. He encourages children to describe the way that unhealthy adult relationships make them feel.

When children have experienced violence and abuse within their family, Monkey Bob helps them to make sense of it all. He lets them see that healthy family relationships are possible. And he helps us to teach children that healthy family relationships are normal, desirable and deserved – even by kids who might have been taught otherwise.

Visit the Monkey Bob shop to place your order now. Or read our resources page for more about supporting children and young people. Just contact us if you have any questions.