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http://sfhelp.org/parent/d_needs.htm
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This is one of a series of articles in Lesson 6
- learn how to parent effectively. The range and
scope of major social problems suggests that U.S. parents are failing at
this.
This article assumes you're familiar with...
-
the
intro to this nonprofit site, and the
premises underlying it
-
self-study Lessons
-
Erik Erickson's
8 stages of child development
-
perspective on
human needs
-
research on maternal stress, bonding, and child
development
-
research on kids from "risky" (low nurturance) families
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The purpose of this article is to alert family
adults and supporters to what their
dependent kids need informed adult help with as they grow. Each child depends on you all to know their web
of
needs and how and when to fill them well enough. A
family's nurturance level
measures how well the needs of all members are filled as their family
evolves.
Many of these developmental needs are concurrent, which can overwhelm kids and caregivers alike. Some needs are more
primal and impactful than others. Kids' "acting out" is often an inarticulate cry for help with this heavy load,
for typical boys and girls lack the understanding and vocabulary to say what they
need.
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Many
caregivers and family supporters (a) can't describe all these needs, (b)
when they're best filled as a child develops, or (c) how to best
fill them. This risks ineffective caregiving, and dependent kids' developing
significant psychological
and crippling
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Reality-check
this summary - see
if (a) you needed knowledgeable adult help to fill each of these developmental needs to
become an independent adult, and (b) whether you got enough competent
adult help filling them. Then picture each minor child you care about one at a
time, and
reflect on how you adults are progressing in filling each of these vital needs
for them, so far...
A primal need of all kids is to have had two wholistically-healthy
parents wisely choose if and when to conceive
a baby. Many
of low-nurturance childhoods can't do this - which promotes
reprodu-cing low-nurturance environments for their own kids and grandkids.
Lesson 4
in this Web site is about making wise mate-selection
Self-study
is about evolving a high-nurturance home and family.
Option: test yourself. Before reviewing this inventory, write
down as many normal child-development needs as you can. Then compare your
list with the one below.
This need-checklist is not exhaustive or prioritized.
Typical Young Kids Need to...
1) Evolve a harmonious
personality guided by their
resident
The
alternative is surviving a low-nurturance environment and
adapting to the dominance of a short-sighted, reactive group of narrowly-skilled
called (here) a
Filling this keystone
need is unlikely if one or more caregivers are often
controlled by their own false selves.
Our unremarked US divorce epidemic suggests this
is com-mon in most families.
2)
Learn
how to think critically, objectively,
and independently,
in order to make realistic sense out of the world and make effective daily
decisions. This includes many sub-needs, like mastering abstract
(non-concrete) thinking, sorting and synthesizing unrelated ideas, discerning
information pat-terns, and effective logical deduction. And average young kids need to...
3)
Learn
how to be clearly
of - and
balance
(prioritize) - dynamic emotions, thoughts, hunches,
intuitions, and current
in order to react to life challenges in healthy, safe, and satisfying ways;
And
kids need to...
4)
Learn
to monitor their
of
awareness" and to want to
include selected others in their bubble in non-emergencies.
A related need is learning how to discern and balance short-term and
long-term needs. The ultimate phase of this developmental need is growing an empathic
awareness of the interdependence of all life forms on Earth. And young kids need to...
5)
Forge
a realistic
to satisfy the
primal
questions "Who am I?" and "How am I like and
dif-ferent from my parents, other people, and
other males and females?" Part of this developmental need is evolving a
stable, healthy way to
themselves from
their caregivers' needs and
visions of who they
want the child to be. Filling this need includes each child
identifying and accepting his or her unique tal-ents and personal limitations without undue guilt,
shame, and anxiety;
And
typical minor kids need to...
6)
Forge genuine
self-respect and self-trust as foundations for filling their daily and long-term needs
effectively. And growing kids also need to...
7)
Evolve genuine non-egotistical
(vs. shame), and acceptance of
their unique talents and limitations; and...
8)
Learn
(a) how to form safe emotional attachments to
with) selected people, ideas, vis-ions, and principles;
and how to
(b)
when such (psychological - mental -
spiritual bonds break; and
to...
9)
Learn
how to think and communicate
with other people in calm, intimate, and conflictual settings; and...
10)
Learn to understand, appreciate, and care effectively for their changing
body, to promote ongoing wholistic health and healing. This includes kids'
needs to understand, appreciate, and control their
sensuality and
sexuality. And they also need to...
11)
Learn
how
to make balanced decisions between...
-
short-term
pleasure vs. long-term satisfaction;
-
pleasing others vs.
themselves;
-
inner and environmental realities vs. tempting
illusions and
and to decide between
-
attitudes of
pessimism, idealism, and realistic optimism; and learn to balance...
-
work, play, and
rest.
And children need to do this while they...
12)
Learn
and practice effective social and relationship
skills like tact, empathy, intimacy, auth-enticity, selective
assertion, cooperation, obedience, and respectful confrontation, to "get along well"
with other people - including a mate.
Growing kids also need to...
13)
Learn
how to...
-
want to take full responsibility for the outcomes of their
decisions and behaviors without coaching. Popular alternatives are denial, projection,
repression, blaming, forgetting, explaining (justifying), "confusion,"...); and
learn to...
-
respectfully grant other
able people full responsibility for their decisions, behaviors, feelings,
health, and welfare;
-
how to learn, evaluate, retain, sort and prioritize, and apply new information; and...
-
how and
where to get needed information, and learn...
-
how to make their own minds up about
themselves and the world, rather than blindly accepting other people's
beliefs and "truths"; and learn...
-
how to unlearn old attitudes, beliefs, habits, and
values that no longer fit current life reality and goals;
14)
Evolve
meaningful answers to core life questions about
spirituality and religion, life and cosmic origins, destiny, fate, good and evil, and death;
and learn to revere, trust, and include the
of themselves
in life decisions; and...
15)
Learn how to
learn
from - and adjust to - personal mistakes
and failures, and how to keep their wholistic (mental + spiritual +
psychological + physical) balance.
And growing kids
need to...
16)
Evolve
an authentic (vs. borrowed or rote) framework of
ethics and morals to
discern what's "right and wrong," and "good and bad" in any situation,
and learn how to apply those judgments effec-tively toward filling daily and long-range
needs; while they...
17) Learn how to
(a) successfully earn, save, spend, and responsibly manage
money and debts,
and to (b) respect and care for what money buys, including power and freedoms;
and...
18) Learn to make responsible, healthy young-adult
decisions about
sex and child conception, and learn fundamental ideas
about child, human, and
family development and
high-nurturance (effective)
parenting; and...
19) Learn
how to understand, negotiate, and balance the responsibilities and limits
of key social
roles,
like child, grandchild; sibling; student;
friend; sexual partner; local, national, and global citizen; team and class
member; neighbor; employee; taxpayer; consumer;
spiritual being; debtor; and
eventually independent wo/man. And ideally, developing kids learn to...
20)
Acknowledge that they have a unique, worthy
life mission or purpose, and stay alert for "evi-dence" (thoughts, feelings, hunches, outside
feedback) about what it is, while exploring as many "person-alities" and
roles as possible. That can help them...
21)
Evolve
a meaningful plan about where they want their life to go in the next
several years and beyond. The alternative is living each day as a
random experience, with no plan or life purpose. This risks
David Campbell's wry observation fitting: "If you don't know where
you're going, you'll probably wind up somewhere else."
And minor kids need
to...
22)
Learn how to promptly
ask for and accept
needed human and spiritual
help - without excessive
guilts, shame, and
anxieties, when life becomes chaotic and overwhelming; and...
23)
Learn how to accurately discern who and what to
trust, and how to adapt to
people, ideas, and circumstances they don't
trust enough.
And before living on their own, kids need to...
24)
Learn basic life skills like cooking, sanitation,
hygiene, checkbook balancing, understanding contracts and laws, and
(usually) operating a vehicle; while they learn about the physical
world, and how and why to nurture vs. deplete it.
25)
And
over time, kids need to learn to live comfortably enough with
ambiguity and insecurity, and to forge credible-enough answers to the
eternal questions about conception and life, aging, death, origins, God,
evil, "senseless change," trauma, joy, hope, love, miracles, and
epiphanies.
26) Evolve autonomy
and self confidence from filling all these needs well enough over
many years, and use those to leave home without undue anxiety, guilt, and
confusions. This is a
decision and change, not an individual one.
