What every child needs

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What every child needs

I have decided to collect the most important information for parents and carers who search for basic information on upbringing. I hope that this article will be helpful for my clients who want to better understand their children and their own experiences as children and parents. This is going to be just a start for further research and reflection on own parental skills. But I hope it will give you an idea of what is most important in social and psychological development. I have chosen a few theories that I explained in a simple way. They focus on different points of understanding  child’s needs.

What every child needs – the connection

We all are the social creatures and we learn in interactions with closed ones. Children learn how to survive and explore the world by taking example from parents. There are three possible ways of building a connection and fulfilling child needs basen on the attachment theory of Bowlby (1969):

child needs

 

 

 

 

How do parents do that? It is both an aware and subconscious reactions to child needs that give a baby a response full of emotions. Watch the video to see an example.

What every child needs – Erikson’s stages

What are actually the needs? Basic needs are not enough for us anymore. We long for satisfaction and meaningful life. Therefore we need to look wider at the child needs. Eric Erickson had developed 8 stages of psychosocial development that come with significant virtue, age and existential question.

Watch the video explaining it more in details:

What every kid needs – learning thru role playing

I often meet parents who wish to understand where play time needs to change to study time. It is a mistaken role of play. Kids  explore the world by mimicking adults from the very beginning. They observe and try to explore by themselves. Adults call it a play time but actually it is a role playing and learning new skills time. The problem occurs when an adult wants a kid move to a different activity. That is when first temper tantrums happens. How to deal with that?  It takes an act of appreciation to give a child a responsibility that would fulfill the needed task. It is also a trick to keep child need of being respected and treated with dignity at the same time. Children love to be seen as more mature and responsible. Do you remember when you pretended to be tall enough to get on a rollercoaster or old enough to stay up late? Therefore you can use it as a motivation tool with your child. If they struggle with meeting the expectation, you simply name it that probably they need more time to learn a skill and enjoy the reward from being responsible.

What every kid needs are the healthy boundaries

Kids will not know where they need to stop to not hurt themselves. They need their parents to tell them where the safety line ends. There is an equal  chance for success or regress on every stage. The good news are that the developmental limits can be unblocked at any time. It is all a matter of compassion, engagement and time. It is crucial for every parent to accept that there are moment when a child would be frustrated, angry or upset and it is needed for their mental health. I strongly recommend Jasper Juul who clearly explains a parents role in fulfillind child needs. Watch a short movie as a starter and read his books for the main course.