The Needs of Children

             A recent topic that has dominated my husband and my conversations has been parenting. We are expecting a baby in January and I have been doing a lot of research. Research can't replace experiencing parenting, but I do believe it can help him and me to be prepared. Among my research I found that one really important factor is meeting the child's needs. This is important in your relationship with your child and helping your child to become a strong, independent individual. There are many needs that children have but there are five that are important in helping your child develop courage to get their needs met.  These are Contact and Belonging, Power, Protection, Withdrawal, and Challenge. A couple of these I foresaw being a need but there were others I didn't. I will talk about the needs, the usual results when these needs are not met, and the approach to how parents can fulfill these needs.

              The first is Contact and Belonging. This is the need to have contact with others, especially physical contact, and the need to belong. When this need isn't met then children exhibit undue attention seeking. The thing about undue attention seeking, is that one will never have enough of what they don't need. If you don't need it, then you will never be able to get enough of it to fulfill what you do need. For example, if I am extremely thirst and I need water, but instead have a lot of soda I am going to keep drinking it trying to fulfill my need for water. It won't work, and I will continue to try and drink soda even though it isn't helping. If this need isn't being fulfilled, then children might act out or seek attention or physical contact in other ways that may not always be healthy and could be dangerous. The way for parents to meet this need is to offer contact freely and to teach children to contribute.

              The next need is power. If children don't feel like they have enough they can respond by rebellion or being very controlling themselves. The best way to meet this need is to offer choices. Let your child experience how to make age appropriate decisions. The next part is to allow the consequences to happen. When parents include both choices and consequences children can gain responsibility. That is Response-Ability. They learn the ability to respond and take responsibility.

              The third need is protection. This need surprised me a bit. I definitely thought protection would be apart of the child's needs, but I didn't see it in this way. You protect the child, but also teach them how to protect themselves. If they don't feel this need is met, then they can try to feel that protection by getting revenge. The way to meet this need is a) you being assertive and forgiving, and b) teaching them to be assertive and forgiving. It is important to note that there is a difference between assertive and aggressive. Being assertive helps them to place boundaries between themselves and others and standing up for themselves. The difficult part of this is that they are going to be assertive with you. When you hurt their feelings, they will let you know and as they grow and learn to understand their feelings it isn't going to always be clear or kind. What we do in return is accept this. We forgive them and teach them to forgive us.

              The next need is withdrawal. I didn't even know what this one was going to be. It sounded so interesting. Withdrawal refers to the need to take a break and relax, but then continue. If this need isn't met then children can experience undue avoidance. They will constantly avoid tasks they need to accomplish or problems they have.

For example, if you are in a hot garden working all day long you would be very tired at the end of the day. It would have been exhausting and not particularly enjoyable. You probably wouldn't be excited to go back to it. But instead, once you became hot, tired, and thirsty you went inside for a moment and got a drink. You sat down and rested a bit. Then you came back to what you were doing so that you were able to finish it, and now you have a renewed energy. Because you know you can take a break and relax you are more willing to start it. This is what we need to teach children. It is okay to take a break and relax, and then go back to what you were doing. It is important that we remember to teach to go back.

              The last need is the need for a challenge. If you know a child, then you know that they love to do things that challenge them. My thoughts go to my niece who loves to do things she isn't big enough to do. First it was learning to stand and to walk. She fell down time after time but pursued it. She loves to try and pour the milk when it is full and heavy. She doesn't always succeed, but when she does she feels a sense of accomplishment. When children aren't challenged they can begin to take undue risk taking that can be dangerous to them. The way we can help children fulfill this need to be challenged is first to model it. Take on challenges yourself and do things that aren't always easy for you. The next is to encourage skill building.

              I hope that as I become a parent I will be able to meet my child's needs. I hope that I will be able to give them their best chance and help raise them to become their best selves. I wish luck to all other parents in their endeavor and hope that you feel confident in yourself as a parent.

The RAM

                                        

I am going to tell you a story about one of my friends who I will call Suzie. Suzie really liked John. She only met him two weeks before, but she knew she loved him. They held hands and hugged all the time and that week they started kissing, which Suzie loved to do to show John she loved him. She didn't really know John very well, but that was okay because she was really committed to him and trusted him. A couple of days later Suzie found out that John was also seeing two other girls. Suzie was devastated.          

This has happened to many friends of mine and it is awful to see them get hurt in their relationships. Sometimes is plays out differently. The guy isn't usually a bad guy, the couple just didn't know each other before they got into it. They had committed to each other a lot more than they were ready for and got hurt when they discovered this person they were dating was not who they thought they were.

How can someone know when they are ready to commit to someone and even when to touch them? There is a model provided by Van Epp called the RAM model. It is a guide for relationships. There are five aspects of the Relationship Attachment Model. Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, and Touch. The model works in the way that the previous aspect should always be higher than the one after it. This means that you should always know a person more than you trust them, you should trust them more than you rely on them, you should rely on them more than you are committed to them, and you should be more committed to them than you touch them. This helps to prevent people from getting hurt in a relationship. 

If a person tries to guide the relationship in an opposite way they can get hurt and it can stunt the growth of the relationship like we saw in the example with Suzie.

What can we do to help Suzie in her next relationship? The first step is getting to know someone. Getting to know the person you intend to date is the most important because it becomes the base for all the other aspects. Once you know them you can begin to trust them, because you know that a) they aren't dating anybody else right now, and b) you know them enough to trust that they won't date someone else while you are seeing them. Once you trust them you can begin to rely on them. If you trust someone you know them enough to trust them to not let you down. Then you can commit to them because you know you can rely on them and they will have your back. Then comes touch. Many people like to bring touch in really fast. It can be really hard to hold off on touch, not even sexual touch but all kinds of touch.

Bringing in the aspect of touch too early can make someone feel like they know their partner even if they don't know them at all. With this faux basis of knowledge of someone, a person can start to build on all the other aspects as well. All too soon, the faux base can crumble and bring down everything else with it. Just because you don't know someone doesn't mean they are a bad person, it just means you don't know them. 

Here is what Suzie can do with this advice in her next relationship. Suzie has now just met Chris. Chris seems like a great guy, but she is worried because of how things ended up with John. Chris takes Suzie out on a date and they talk and get to know each other the entire night. At the end of the night Chris goes to kiss Suzie. Suzie stops him and asks if they can wait until they get to know each other more. Chris is disappointed because he was really looking forward to kissing Suzie, but he agrees. Chris and Suzie go on many more dates of all different kinds. They are starting to really get to know each other. They start to learn about the person as they are with their faults. Eventually they do start to kiss, but they never go farther than they are committed to each other.

Don't forget the 5 basics! First get to know your partner, then you can start to trust them, after you trust them you can begin relying on them, once you rely on them you can commit to them, and once you are committed to them you can start sharing touch. I wish you all the best in your relationships.