5 Core Needs of Children

The art of education cannot be mastered once and for all. As the child ages, the needs of the child change, and parents need to learn to be sensitive to these changes. In my opinion, all children of all ages have five basic emotional needs: the need for respect, the need to feel worthy, the need to be accepted, the need to feel connected with others, and the need to be safe.

I called them the main ones, since the successful implementation of these needs is the cornerstone of raising an emotionally healthy child. For parents, these needs are like a roadmap with which it is possible and necessary to correct their actions, evaluate pedagogical success, developing the strengths of the child's character and smoothing out the child's shortcomings.

• The need for respect
• The need to feel worthy
• Need for acceptance
• The need to feel connected to others
• The need for security

Love

You may have already asked this question: “What about love? Why was she not included in the five basic children's needs? " I will not mention love on purpose, and not at all because I underestimate its importance - on the contrary, the importance of love cannot be overestimated. It's just that the word "love" itself has acquired so many different shades that it has lost some of its power and meaning.

The words "I love you" sometimes sound trite, meaningless, often they just confuse us. In one interview, a young woman retells her conversation with her mother - they lived separately for a long time. “Well, you know how much we love you, dear? the mother asks. "Aren't we talking about this all the time?" To which the daughter angrily replies: “Love? What do you know about love? You only said that you love me, but I did not notice it from your actions! "

There are parents who humiliate or ignore the child, and then tell him “we love you”, hoping that these words will somehow smooth out their ugly behavior. Too often love is equated with the phrase "I love you." If words alone were enough, the divorce rate would not be that high. Families do not fall apart because one of the spouses stops talking about love. This is due to the fact that people stop treating each other with love. If there is no love in the actions of the spouses, then it is more and more difficult to believe the words.

Most parents really love their children - that's natural. But this does not mean that all these parents know how to behave like loving fathers and mothers. One woman told me how a certain authority in the field of education assured her that you just need to love the child, behave honestly and sincerely - and everything will be fine.

Love, sincerity and honesty are of course very important. But "all that glitters is not gold." I remember one father who constantly scolded and humiliated his son, calling him a fat man, a lazy man, a club, and God only knows who. This son, already a grown man, suffers and suffers to this day. But his father loved him, honestly and openly expressed his thoughts and was quite sincere.

So, to the question "What about love?" I answer that it is impossible to do without love, of course, and that it is also necessary to tell the child “I love you”, but this will clearly not be enough: love must be confirmed by deeds. That is why the word “love” in my perception is more likely not a noun, but a verb, and “acting like loving parents” means treating a child so that his soul is light, joyful and calm. The key to the emotional health of a child is the desire of parents to behave in such a way that children feel: they are respected, appreciated, accepted for who they are, included in the team and protected - this is the best way to prove their love.

The need for respect

Children need to feel respected. Therefore, the attitude towards them should be the most attentive, the treatment should be polite and courteous. Children need to be appreciated and seen in them as full-fledged people, and not "appendages" to their parents, who can be pushed around at their own discretion. Children need to be respected as independent individuals with their own will and desires.

If you treat a child without due respect, his self-esteem will drop sharply, he will defiantly behave with others. In the end, he will be completely out of hand. Children whose parents regard them as second-class creatures are often simply convinced that something is wrong with them - often this becomes their subconscious conviction. See →

The need to feel worthy

Feeling important means for a child to feel his own strength, influence, value, to feel that “I mean something”. This need manifests itself at the most tender age.

If children do not feel needed and useful (and in our time this is one of the main children's problems), if they cannot satisfy this need "legally", children will most likely try to attract attention to themselves with some kind of far from harmless way. They can rebel, get embittered, start to be insolent, can contact some gang or gang; addicted to drugs, start a promiscuous sex life, take the path of crime. See →

Need for acceptance

The child needs to be seen as a self-sufficient, unique personality, and not just a copy of the parents, which needs to be adjusted to the parental standards of the ideal son or daughter.

This means that children have the right to have their own judgments, their feelings, desires and ideas about the world. We have to admit that feelings are neither good nor bad - they just exist. To accept is not to approve, agree, or be lenient. Accepting the feelings of the child means recognizing that children, like all people, are endowed with their own feelings and that these feelings should not be suppressed, one should not be afraid of them - they should be accepted, understood and discussed, if necessary, working together with the child on their development. See →

The need to feel connected to others

Children need to feel “on the team”. They need to be not forgotten and allowed to participate in the events taking place. Meanwhile, remember how many times you have heard and uttered the lines: “No, not now. Grow up first "," You are still small, it is still early for you. "

If people are doing something together, they feel the connection between them more sharply. Household work or leisure time together gives us the opportunity to get closer to each other, learn something and help others. If a child feels a strong connection with his loved ones, he will be able to successfully resist negative influences from the outside. It also increases the likelihood that he wants to be like someone from the family. See →

The need for security

Protecting a child means creating a stable, safe, calm and nurturing environment in which the child feels loved and protected, and the intentions and behavior of those close to him are dictated by a sincere concern for his well-being.

The art of treating children is, among other things, the art of balancing between freedom and control. Certain restrictions are inevitable; without restrictions, children cannot feel safe. Permissiveness breeds anxiety, the child will constantly feel some kind of danger, and immaturity and lack of experience will make him completely helpless.

There you have the five essential needs of your children. Our sole goal as parents is to satisfy those needs at best. Hopefull the tips above will help you in fulfilling that task.