By Maxine Thérèse
There has never been so much information about how to best undertake the role of parenting, and at the same time it seems that what children really need remains largely unrecognised.
Many children don’t have their needs met – not because of a lack of knowledge, but because the applications of such knowledge has been hard to combine in the one model.
In my own journey as a mother, I found it common (and frustrating) that many child experts claimed that their idea, practice or strategy was best. Then the next child expert would come along and proclaim something completely different.
I also discovered that whilst the advice given may be beneficial to a certain aspect of the child’s life, that same approach didn’t work on other parts of the child’s life or apply long-term.
As a mother, I was often conflicted with who to believe was best to advise about my child’s needs and which way might be right. Sometimes the advice went against my intuition and so I was constantly pushed to find a better way.
My experiences led me to look more deeply into why our children do what they do. In doing so, I found support for the notion that children already know what they need and have in fact been waiting for us to recognise this.
I developed the first needs based model for childhood (and later adulthood) wellbeing. I found in my research that psychological needs theory and other developmental models to understand children’s needs were lacking and none of them addressed the whole child.
My Foundational Needs Model offers a map of the needs that we all share as human beings – needs that converge in the chakra centres of the human body, and incorporate the child’s mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs working as a unified whole.
The model assists parents to see and know what children are indicating about their needs through their behaviours.
If these needs are not met, they will continue to hold energetic patterns and persist within families that can further restrict wellbeing.
Adults can stop the cycle of unmet needs by listening to, and looking at children’s behaviours as signals that offer important information, rather than projecting their own unmet needs, ideas or other people’s advice onto their children’s behaviours.
As parents we may see our child’s behaviours as challenging, disrespectful or worrying.
However, when we open to the wonder of what our children’s behaviours mean if and when children experience something or do something that we have issue with, we can rest assured that these symptoms or behaviours are exactly what need to be expressed because they are indicating what the child needs.
Our children are literally teaching us, as they are forcing us to be more aware of the unhealthy patterns of relating that still occur in our lives, so that we may all move forward with more unity.
For example:
- If your child displays anger, is cold and hurtful in their words and actions toward others, they have an unmet Need to Love. You can consider if the home environments and peer groups the child inhabits are open, unconditional, and connecting. If they are not, there is an opportunity to nurture this need.
- If your child has speech issues such as stuttering or withholding words the child may not feel that their expression and voice is valued. The Need to Speak comes easier for children who have adults in their lives that use their voice to express their needs and allow children to do this in an activated and balanced way as well.
These examples address two of the needs in my Foundational Needs Model based on my parenting, research and clinical practice spanning over 20 years.
The model opens up a whole new way of communicating between parents and children, resolves unmet needs and challenges the status-quo.
I’d love for you to join me to discover more about my Foundational Needs Model and how it can transform your family at my parenting seminar on Tuesday 26 February 2019 at the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre.
Copies of my book ‘The Push for a Child Philosophy – What Children Really Need You to Know’ is available at www.childosophy.com, or via Amazon or at The Book Bird in Pakington Street.
