Emergency at home

Have You Ever Asked a Child What Happiness Means to Them?

True happiness is built day by day, by providing children with spaces where they can express themselves, explore, and learn without fear. A safe environment is essential for this. Feeling protected and understood during childhood helps children develop a positive and resilient attitude toward life's challenges.

What Is a Safe Environment?

When we talk about a safe environment, we refer to a space free from physical and emotional dangers. Physical safety means:

• Having a home in good condition.

• Access to basic services, such as clean water, electricity, and other resources that ensure a good quality of life.

• Safe play areas where children can engage in physical activity and foster creativity.

However, safety is not just about physical protection; emotional security is just as important. This means creating an environment filled with love, respect, and stability. In fact, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes child protection, focusing on the prevention of and response to exploitation, abuse, neglect, harmful practices, and violence against children and adolescents. Safety, therefore, also means protection from any form of violence or abuse.

Creating Safe Spaces at Home

To ensure that home is a place that promotes children’s happiness and emotional well-being, families should adopt positive parenting practices. Here are some key recommendations:

• Set clear boundaries. Establish rules and expectations in a consistent and respectful way. This helps children understand their responsibilities.

• Encourage empathy. Teach children to put themselves in others’ shoes—an essential skill for building healthy relationships and social awareness. This can start as early as age 3 or 4 when children begin to develop empathy.

• Promote resilience. Help children see challenges as learning opportunities and develop the ability to overcome adversity.

• Recognize and celebrate achievements. Positive reinforcement boosts self-esteem and motivation.

• Ensure emotional stability. Routine and a stable environment with personalized attention are key for a child’s sense of security.

• Foster open dialogue. Encouraging children to express their feelings without fear of judgment helps them develop emotional intelligence and feel safe discussing any topic.

Growing Up in a Vulnerable Environment

A child's well-being depends on having a safe environment that provides both physical protection and emotional stability. Happiness in childhood is strengthened by love, security, and positive parenting, which allow children to explore and develop their full potential in a healthy setting.

However, in 2023, 300,000 children in Spain were at risk of losing parental care, and more than 50,000 were growing up in foster care, separated from their families. Children lacking a stable and secure environment face multiple risks, including:

• Mental health impacts: Anxiety, fear, and stress that negatively affect self-esteem and emotional stability.

• Poor academic performance.

• Difficulties forming trusting relationships, leading to social isolation.

• Learning challenges that hinder cognitive and emotional growth in the long term.

Early intervention is crucial to preventing long-term negative effects. By identifying these challenges early, we can implement support measures that ensure children grow up in safe, nurturing environments. That’s why Aldeas Infantiles SOS has a Child Protection Policy, which promotes child welfare and involves children, staff, collaborators, families, and the community.

Protecting the Most Vulnerable Children

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, more than 51,000 children and adolescents are in Spain’s child protection system. In 2023, Aldeas Infantiles SOS provided a protective family environment for 1,320 children and adolescents who had lost parental care.

At our SOS Children's Villages, we provide more than just stability and security—we also strengthen emotional bonds and personal identity, ensuring that every child feels part of a community that supports them unconditionally.

Additionally, our Day Centers operate as extended families, where siblings and children of different ages live in a home-like environment under the care of dedicated educators.

Creating safe environments is not just a necessity—it is a right. Ensuring every child has a safe space to grow, learn, and dream is essential to building a better future for all.