How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children
Meeting the Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too
by Gerald Newmark, PhD.
Simple, powerful tools to enhance the lives of children, parents and families. Childbearing is too important to leave to chance! This unique book shows parents how to combine common sense and systematic methods to create a family atmosphere where both children and parents thrive. It provides an action strategy, including simple planning tools, that helps families become engaged, connected, and aware of how they are doing.
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HOW TO RAISE EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY CHILDREN
Meeting The Five Critical Needs Of Children…And Parents Too!
By Gerald Newmark, Ph.D.
Foreword
With the multitude of books on parenting and child-rearing already at hand, it is both surprising and refreshing to welcome a new one marked by a straightforward and intelligible approach that is as relevant for adults as for the children it addresses. Dr. Newmark challenges the time-honored, emotion-driven, “seat-of-the-pants” approach to parenting, and suggests instead that parents use an intentional, systematized strategy that recognizes and responds to five critical needs of kids. These emotional needs—to feel respected, to feel important, to feel accepted, to feel included, and to feel secure—are neither obscure nor hard to understand. Their importance is obvious. They clearly contribute to self-esteem and self-worth. Yet, as the author abundantly shows, parents’ emotional or erratic responses often deny these needs, leaving an accumulating residue of anxiety, self-doubt and uncertainty in the mind of the child. What is more, these needs are just as important to adults. Unfortunately, in our interactions with each other, they are too often ignored to the detriment of our personal relationships and our own mental health. Can we possibly learn better from our children? It is fitting that Dr. Newmark repeatedly suggests that our children have something to teach us if we will but watch and listen. They frequently have ideas we fail to see as relevant or useful, and express truths that escape us.
This is a book that parents—especially new parents—should have by their bedside. It is a book that child agency personnel and professional caregivers should read and recommend to their clients and patients. Its simple message is one that youth workers should incorporate in their work and that teachers should apply in their classroom. I think parents (and other adults) who successfully practice meeting these critical needs in their children will certainly raise emotionally healthier kids, and as a secondary benefit, hardly less important, significantly improve their own mental health.Roy W.
Menninger, M.D.
Chairman of Trustees,
Menninger Foundation
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Five Critical Emotional Needs of Children
Emotional health provides a foundation for success in school, work, and life. Children’s emotional well-being is no less important than physical health. Satisfying a child’s five critical emotional needs—and those of parents’ too— must become a family value.
Need to Feel Respected
Children need to feel respected. For that to happen, they need to be treated in a courteous, thoughtful, attentive and civil manner—as individuals, deserving the same treatment as others. One of the best ways for children to learn about respect is to feel what it’s like to be treated respectfully and to observe their parents and other adults treating each other the same way.
If we want children to grow up feeling respected and treating others with respect, we need to avoid sarcasm, belittling, yelling; we need to keep anger and impatience to a minimum; we need to avoid lying; we need to listen more and talk less; command less and suggest and request more; learn how to say “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me” “I’m sorry”—yes, even to children. We need to be conscious of our mistakes, willing to admit them, and ready to make corrections, and to cultivate these values in our children.
Need to Feel Important
Feeling important refers to a child’s need to feel: “I have value. I am useful. I have power. I am somebody.” This need is evident at a very early age. Pressing a button in an elevator—me! me! Children want to do things for themselves, and so often we get in their way.
Parents need to avoid being all powerful, solving all family problems, making all decisions, doing all the work, controlling everything that happens. Involve your children—ask their opinions; give them things to do; share decision-making and power; give them status and recognition, and have patience with mistakes when it takes a little longer or is not done as well as you could have done yourself.
If children do not feel important, if they don’t develop a sense of value in constructive ways, they frequently seek negative ways to get attention, to feel that, “I am somebody.”
Need to Feel Accepted
Children have a need to feel accepted as individuals in their own right, with their own uniqueness, and not treated as mere reflections of their parents, as objects to be shaped in the image of what parents believe their ideal child should look like. This means that children have a right to their own feelings, opinions, ideas, concerns, wants and needs. Trivializing, ignoring or ridiculing a child’s feelings or opinions is a rejection which weakens the relationship. Paying attention to and discussing them, even when you do not like or disagree with what you are hearing, strengthens the relationship.
Need to Feel Included
Children need to feel included. They need to be brought in, to be made to feel a part of things, to feel connected to other people, to have a sense of community. It happens when people engage with others in activities and projects, when they experience things together in a meaningful way. It is important for the family to create these opportunities. People who do things together feel closer to one another. Family activities offer a way to become closer and also to have fun, learn, and contribute to others.
Need to Feel Secure
Children need to feel secure. Security means creating a positive environment where people care for each other and show it; where people express themselves and others listen; where differences are accepted and conflicts are resolved constructively; where enough structure exists for children to feel safe and protected; and where children have opportunities to actively participate in their own evolution and that of the family—e.g., in planning, decision-making, problem-solving and family activities.
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Five Critical Needs
BECOMING A STUDENT OF OWN BEHAVIOR
(Keeping A Daily Journal)
To Feel:
1. Respected
2. Important
3. Accepted
4. Included
5. Secure
At the end of the day, briefly answer each of the questions below.
(Keep this form blank as an “Original“ from which to make copies.)
1. Which of my actions today were positive in regard to my child’s five critical needs?
2. Which of my actions today were negative in regard to my child’s five critical needs?
3. What did I learn about myself: attitudes, behavior, strengths, weaknesses?
4. If I were doing today over again, what would I do differently?
5. Comments and/or questions about my child’s or my attitudes and behavior.
Excerpted from How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children by Gerald Newmark, PhD
The Children’s Project • 18653 Ventura Blvd., #547, Tarzana, CA 91356 • 818-708-1244
DOWNLOADED FROM FREE RESOURCES AT www.emotionallyhealthychildren.org
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The Five Emotional Needs of All People…
1) To Feel Respected
a. Definition (from a Co-worker’s perspective): I want my co-workers to treat me with respect as this helps me feel
that I have positive personal qualities to contribute to the workplace.
b. Examples of co-worker behavior – positive and negative
i. Behavior that helps: Treat co-workers in a courteous, thoughtful, attentive and civil manner – the same way
you would like others to treat you
ii. Behavior that hurts: rudeness, sarcasm, belittling, impatience, interrupting, ignoring, gossip
2) To Feel Important
a. Definition (from a co-workers perspective): I want my co-workers to treat me as a significant member of the
workplace who is valued for who I am – not only what I do or don’t do.
b. Examples of co-worker behavior – positive and negative
i. Behavior that helps: letting a co-worker do things for him/herself; letting them experiment and make decisions and problem-solve on their own; valuing all employees, regardless of position
ii. Behavior that hurts: being over controlling– co-workers need more yes’s than no’s; not listening
3) To Feel Accepted
a. Definition (from a co-worker’s perspective): I want my co-workers to include me and to respond to my
contributions approvingly.
b. Examples of co-worker behavior – positive and negative
i. Behavior that helps: include your co-worker in discussions; listen attentively; remain patient; praise contributions openly and discuss concerns privately
ii. Behavior that hurts: avoiding discussions with co-workers because of feelings of fear or guilt; reacting to
mistakes or disagreements out of frustration rather than using them as a learning experience
4) To Feel Included
a. Definition (from a co-worker’s perspective): I want to feel as though I am an essential part of my work- place and
that without me things wouldn’t be as good or complete.
b. Examples of co-worker behavior – positive and negative
i. Behavior that helps: Being open and honest in a courteous way with your co-worker about something that makes you upset; involving your co-worker in making choices and decisions; acknowledging your co-
worker’s contributions to the workplace
ii. Behavior that hurts: Not giving your co-worker acknowledgement or allowing them to accept responsibility
for the choices and contributions they make in the workplace
5) To Feel Secure
a. Definition (from a co-worker’s perspective): I want to understand what my co-worker’s expectations are in the
work place. I want to feel safe. I don’t like to worry about whether I’m meeting work place expectations.
b. Examples of co-worker behavior – positive and negative
i. Behavior that helps: I see that my co-workers care about one another, and me, because they listen to one
another and treat each other respectfully. My co-worker’s and I are clear about our roles in the work
place and our expectations of one another. The clear communication, structure, rules, and
expectations of my work place help me feel safe and secure
ii. Behavior that hurts: Unclear communication surrounding work place expectations; treating co-
workers disrespectfully; inconsistent or ambiguous rules and expectations
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Presented at Educational Opportunities for Children and Families, Vancouver Washington
All Staff In-Service Training of 280 employees. Distributed by the Cultural Exchange Committee October 15, 2010
The philosophy of the five critical emotional needs is based on the book
How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting the Five Critical Needs of Children…and Parents Too!
by Dr. Gerald Newmark emotionallyheatlhychildren.org
Printed with permission from NMI Publishers.
How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children Meeting the Five Critical Needs of Children...And Parents Too
by Gerald Newmark, PhD.
Dr. Gerald Newmark is a parent, educator, researcher, and consultant who has worked with schools and youth for more than 30 years. He is the author of This School Belongs To You & Me and has received a presidential citation for his work in education.
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