Feelings in relationships

For your child, being able to have healthy relationships involves understanding how they feel about different people.

There are different ways to think about the feelings we have about other people.

It can start with a simple question like ‘How does this person make me feel?’

Understanding how a person makes them feel and knowing what to do if they feel uncomfortable is an important self-protection skill for children of all ages. For more information about self-protection skills, go to (link to Personal Safety topic page)

If your child is good at identifying how people make them feel, you can then move onto more complex questions which are important as your child develops more relationships, for example ‘How much do I like this person?’ or ‘Who do I like better?’

As your child ages, it is also a good idea to start talking about feelings of sexual attraction, or sexy feelings. It is important to understand what these feelings are and the things that happen to your body when feelings occur. For more information, go to Developing Sexual Feelings.