A Child's Needs

Everyone makes decisions for a reason, even children, though their reasons are not always what we think they are. They make decisions based on their needs and their want for them to be fulfilled. Children and teenagers have 5 main needs: comfort and belonging, power, protection, withdraw, and challenge. These needs are why children make the decisions that they do. Because parents and others often do not see past the behavior of the child to what the child actually needs, there are mistaken approaches that they take instead. Parents take mistaken approaches when they assume they know what their child wants, when in reality they are seeking something else.

          The 1st needs, contact and belonging, are needed right from birth because children benefit from the touch of someone. That contact can come in many forms including eye contact, hugs, holding, and others. The need for contact is so great that people, especially children and teenagers, will do just about anything to get it. In fact, children can suffer with failure to thrive if they go without contact from someone, which is a medical condition. Because of this, children suffer when they are without contact. This leads to people doing just about anything to have contact—it makes them feel good. Belonging means to be wanted and needed by others, and when you feel like you belong, you feel that you are valuable and worth something to someone. Children also feel like they belong when they are able to contribute and do things for and with each other. Being involved and being a part of something in any way are other forms of belonging. You also feel like you belong when you are able to contribute. Contributing also includes doing things for and with each other. You do something to belong—it does not and cannot just happen.The mistaken approach for children’s 1^st need is undue attention seeking. This means that most of the time when it seems that children are seeking attention they are seeking something else entirely. Children act in different ways so that they can get the attention of someone, and it is often their parents. However, they are not seeking for what their parents think they are.

The 2nd need, power, has a few mistake approaches. Parents believe that when children seem to be seeking power they are really seeking rebellion and to control others. They are think that they are working against something. Children just want to have power over their own lives and be able to make their own choices. There is also another mistaken approach that is associated with power and it is revenge. The thing about revenge, though, is that you can never get enough for it to feel good or feel like it is enough.

The 3rd need is protection. Children want to know that there are people in their lives that are looking out for them. They want to that there is someone there for them. Children look to those who are older than them because they trust that they know what is best for them and how to keep them safe. 

The 4th need, withdraw, means that children have the need to get away from situations. It is important for children to learn how to take a break and then get back to something. Parents mistake this need for withdraw and breaks as undue avoidance. They are under the assumption that children are unable to step away from something. In other words, they have to finish something instead of going on to something else.

The 5th need that children have is the need for challenge. Children need to be challenged and they need to be able to work toward something. Challenging also means to be able to master challenging things. Parents take this as children having an undue risk taking. They seem to think that all children want to do is take risks, which is not the case. Overall, children have different needs that not only need to be fulfilled, but they need to be recognized.