Parenting

You can never get enough of what you don't need because what you don't need won't satisfy you. 

- John H. Groberg

This is kind of Part 2 of my last post. There, I talked about fathers and why they're important. This post is more about both parents.

Vraiment, j'ai peur d'être parent. Je suis très excité à ce sujet aussi, mais l'idée d'être en charge de minuscules humains qui dépendent de moi est effrayante! C'est comme être testé sur un langue qu'on ne vous a jamais appris à parler. (If anyone reading this post actually speaks proficient French, pardonne-moi, s'il vous plait.)

While parenting is something that I'm nervous about, (just because it isn't something that there's an instruction manual for, and if you mess up you don't get a bad grade, but you get a traumatized human) it's something that I'm to do anyway, and because of that, I want to do it right, or as close to right as I can. I've learned recently that "parenting" means more than just giving birth to a child and watching it grow up; there's a technique, almost a science to it, that involves having goals and objectives, and not being passive. There are things that every child needs from its parents, and parents have the responsibility to give them those things. As a result of doing their best to do so, both the parents and children are influenced positively. The parents get the chance to develop divine attributes and learn how to facilitate order and maturation, and the children have their needs addressed and learn how to be effective parents themselves, though that knowledge won't kick in for a while.

In this post, I'll be expanding on those needs of children, how they often mistakenly express those needs, and how parents can respond. According to Michael Popkin, "The purposes of parenting are to protect, and prepare a child to survive and to thrive in the world they're going to live in." The better we understand children, the better equipped we as parents will be to do those things and fulfill that purpose.

The five basic needs of children are the following:
 
Contact and Belonging: Many studies have been done that show that people, but children especially, have a need and not just a desire for physical contact. Beyond that, they have a need for emotional contact and acceptance.
Power: It is not healthy for anyone to feel powerless, just as it isn't healthy for anyone to have total power. This need is cohesive with the responsibility that parents have to not be dictators, but also not to be pushovers.
Protection: This is self explanatory. As adventurous or independent as children may be, they need protection, both in a physical sense and in feeling that they aren't completely alone and fending for themselves.
Withdrawal: I believe this has to do with independence, which every person needs and experiences as they grow up in varying degrees.
Challenge: Again, pretty self explanatory. Challenges are necessary to grow, and children grow monumentally in a host of ways. They need opportunities to overcome obstacles.

The ways that children mistakenly approach getting these needs met are:

Undue attention seeking: Kids are naturally pesky to some degree, but everyone's seen that kid that just won't stop wiggling or screaming or saying, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mommommommommom etc. when said mom might be paying attention to someone else; this comes from the need for contact.
Rebellion/compulsion: Think about teenagers you've known in your life; when they feel they don't have enough power, they either rebel in order to feel powerful, or exercise whatever power they have over others, neither of which is a healthy practice.
Revenge (I can't get respect, so I'll settle for fear): When people, including children, don't feel protected by anything, they can either shrink or become scarier than the thing that is scaring them.
Undue avoidance: It's common knowledge that children and teenagers (and adults are not an exception, either) are good at avoiding tedious tasks, like chores. When something seems overwhelming and a person feels there is no escape, a common response is undue avoidance.
Undue risk-taking: When children aren't given healthy, controlled opportunities to challenge themselves, often they start to go for riskier and riskier behaviors that give them the sense of challenging themselves.

The ways that parents can approach fixing these mistaken approaches and meeting the needs behind them are these:

Offer contact freely, teach to contribute: Even when children are being annoying, it's been found that giving deliberate contact in ways such as holding children, touching them when talking, having special activities that build closeness like daddy-daughter dates or family councils, doing chores together, or taking the time to answer questions helps to avoid undue attention seeking.
Response-ability: Giving children the right amount of power lies in the concepts of choices and consequences. This teaches them lessons that they will use their entire lives: they have the power to choose what they'll do, but not always power to choose the consequences of their actions.
Teach to be assertive and to forgive: A friend once told me, "If you want someone to value something, value it yourself." Parents can give children the right amount of protection by teaching them to value themselves and the things about them that are most important, including self-respect.
Take a break, then go back: It's much easier to accomplish a daunting task (like finals week) if you know that you can work hard, but that it's okay to take a break and then go back to work. Withdrawal and undue avoidance are brought into balance when this idea is correctly understood.
Model, skill building: Finally, the desire for growth through challenge can be met through building skills. People with skills don't feel the need so much to take risks, because they are progressing in a way that challenges them in a consistent, healthy way.

Of course, knowing these needs and approaches doesn't give parents a magic button that fixes all parenting problems and makes it a magical adventure in which there is no conflict and no tears. If there were no conflict and no tears, there would be no growth, which is the purpose of parenting. But knowing how to handle problems when they arise and give children the care that they need makes the effort that is put into parenting more effective.