Children's needs

by Newmark, G. (1999). How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children; meeting the five critical needs of children. Tarzana, California: NMI Publishers.

Chapter One – The Five Critical Needs of Children

Parents serve as a road map to guide children’s actions, progress, build on strengths and overcome shortcomings.

Need to Feel Respected

Children need to be treated with courtesy, consideration, and esteem.  Children need to be respected as separate, autonomous person with wills of their own.  Discourtesy, rudeness, inconsiderateness on the part of the adults is often the result of thoughtlessness.  We don’t think of children as having the same needs as adults, and we do not realize the effect we have on them by what we say and how we say it.

 If we want children to grow up with self-respect and to be respectful of others, we need to be courteous, considerate and respectful to them. We need to avoid sarcasm, belittling, yelling; we need to keep anger and impatience to minimum;

we need to stop lying to them; we need to listen more and talk less; we need to treat them not as things to be controlled and manipulated but rather as people to relate to.

 We need to learn how to say “please,” and “thank you,” and “excuse me.”

 Need to Feel Important

Feeling important includes a child’s need to have a sense of value, power, control and usefulness; to feel that “I am somebody.”

Children need to experiment; they need to try new things.  That’s the way they learn and grow; that’s the way their sense of power grows.  We need to encourage rather than inhibit their curiosity.

 Involving children in decision-making and problem solving, asking their opinions and listening to their answers, contributes to their sense of “I am somebody.”  There are innumerable opportunities to involve children in decision-making at every age level.  Whether is about solving a family problem, preparing a menu for a family meal, planning an activity, deciding what clothes to wear, or caring for a pet, children can be involved.

 Parents need to avoid being all powerful, solving all family problems, making all decision, doing all the work, controlling everything that happens. Involve your children by asking their opinion; give them status and recognition and have patience with mistakes.

 Need to Feel Accepted

Children have a need to be accepted as individuals in their own right, with their own uniqueness, and not treated as mere reflections of their parents, as objects to be shaped in the image of what parents believe their ideal child should look like.

 This means that children have a right to their own feelings, opinions, desires and ideas.  We need to recognize that feelings are not right or wrong; they just are.  Accepting a child’s feelings is simply recognition that like all individuals, children have feelings too, and that a child’s feelings are not to be suppressed or feared but rather to be understood, discussed and worked with when necessary.

 “Catch people doing something right and tell them about it.”  We are very good at catching people, especially children, doing something wrong, a need to change the emphasis to catching them doing something right.

 If you act in a way that tells them they have no right to feel or think something, you imply there is something wrong with them; you reduce the change of their listening to you and your being able to influence their behavior positively.

 Need to Feel Included

They need to be brought in, to be made to feel a part of things.  Children often feel left out and unwanted; when this happens they feel as if they are outsiders rather than part of the family.  How often do they hear, “Not now, you’ll have to wait until you’re older.”

 People who do things together feel closer to one another.  Family activities offer a way of becoming closer and also of having fun, learning, and contributing to others.  If possible, take them to your workplace, introduce them to co-workers, and show them your office.  Encourage them to ask questions and find out what they things about their visit – what impressed them, what they learned.

 People learn, grow, and participate best in an environment where they have some control and know that what they say or do counts.  This applies to children too.  Select activities that all family members will find interesting and worthwhile, either as a total group or with two or more participants.

Need to Feel Secure

Security means providing children with a stable, consistent, safe and caring environment, in which they feel protected and loved and where the intentions and behavior of people have their best interest at heart.