What more would be good to know about the child (2)
Knowing the particularities of the child's age can help us understand his behaviour in different situations. Thus, we will no longer consider certain traits specific to an age period to be “negative” behaviours.
For example, in adolescence, the child's need for affirmation is accentuated. A teenager needs more opportunities to develop his personality and increase his independence from his parents. When this need is not met, the child can become indifferent, isolated or aggressive, revolted.
Understanding the child's emotional needs helps us to provide him with all the necessary conditions to develop harmoniously. Along with physical needs (food, shelter, safety), every person, including children and young people, has emotional needs (support, respect, recognition, acceptance, love, friendship, fulfilment of own hopes, etc.). The health and development of each child depends on the satisfaction of these natural needs.
Continuous communication with the child helps in understanding what he thinks, what he feels, what problems and what needs he has. The relationship parent – child must be based on understanding and not on authority or force. It is possible to reach a good relationship with the child, if he feels that you appreciate and understand him, that you are interested in and respect his personal “universe”. By communicating, you will know the pressures to which the child is subjected in the school environment, family and society. In this way, you will become much more understanding regarding the child's apparently “inappropriate” behaviours.
Developing confidence and self-esteem is a sure way to prevent problems that children and young people can sometimes face: learning difficulties, school dropout, conflict with the law, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide. The child builds his opinion about himself from the opinions that the people around him have about him. The surrounding people are the “mirror” in which the child sees himself. Parents have the basic role in helping children discover and increase their self-esteem. Having good self-esteem means taking responsibility, asserting yourself, being able to meet your own needs, having goals in life and finding ways to achieve them.
Encouraging desired, positive behaviours is the best way to discipline a child. Avoid punishing the child. Beating degrades and intensifies negative feelings. All physical and emotional punishments used by parents have negative effects on the child's self-esteem and on the relationship with him.
The involvement and participation of the child in making decisions that concern him is his right. Children are not mini-humans with mini-rights. Like any being, the child has the right to have and express his personal opinion regarding various aspects of life. Talk to your child when you make decisions that affect him. When you think of going to work abroad, discuss and decide together with the child: if one or both parents leave, how long this absence will take, who will take care of the child, where will the child stay, will he live alone or with the person who will supervise him, what responsibilities the child and his carer will have.
