Family and Peer Relationships

Social relationships provide the necessary environment for normal socio-emotional, cognitive and physical development of all children and adolescents. Aspects of healthy relationships include trust, sense of security, closeness, ability to resolve conflicts, being expressive and receptive in communications, boundary and respect.

The main building blocks of relationships are founded in families in young children, gradually extending to peers and teachers in school as well as other youth communities in adolescence.

The flip-sides of relationships, such as lack of support, neglect, frequent conflicts (and even abuse in the extreme forms), might hamper healthy development and even amount to high stress situation that triggers lasting emotional turmoils in young people, perpetuating low self-esteem and trust issues in character development.

The impact of creating supportive relationships or ameliorating relational conflicts can leverage onto lifelong beneficial effects on mental health and interpersonal functions.


“When we heal relationships, we also heal the people!” ^1,2

– WORK HEART team