It's About the Needs, Stupid!

When the children don’t cooperate, are being wild, ignore instructions and rules and generally do all those things children do that parents don’t agree with, my default reaction, which is a rather human one, is to think that they’re doing it out of spite, just to annoy me. I think it’s the same bias that lets us think other people are stupid when they get it wrong, whereas we’re merely struggling and besides, there were circumstances etc.

In other words, my default, unconscious, immediate and ingrained reaction is often to assume a character flaw with my children. This is, of course, not tremendously helpful.

I’m retraining myself to shift my perspective to needs. When they “misbehave”, and I’m using quotes here because it’s of course very much a matter of point of view, I now try to remember to ask myself instead: “What need isn’t being fulfilled, here?”

With children, it’s safe to bet on one of three basic needs: safety, autonomy or connection. Of course, there are nuances. Safety can be physical, psychological, stress, or simply a matter of property, like when the sibling is claiming a toy for themselves. Connection can be a lack of attention, a fear of separation, or merely a need for companionship. Autonomy, of course, is trivial to grasp.

As an example for the latter, my daughter E has very clear ideas about what she wants to do and, conversely, what she doesn’t. So if she’s playing with Lego when I bust into the room explaining it’s time to go brush her teeth, she’s not receptive to my genius idea, to put it mildly. That’s because to her, it’s important to feel she’s following her own path, and right then, that’s playing Lego. So one possible strategy to avoid a conflict can be to either ask her when she wants to do it and let her take responsibility for it, or to offer companionship as an alternative: Come with me now, and we can sit together in the bathroom, just you and me.

When I remember to think in this way, it usually works quite well!

I’m absolutely, sincerely convinced that conflicts arise mostly because some need isn’t being met, but the beauty of this reframing trick is that it works even if one is still convinced they’re misbehaving out of spite or lack of respect for rules.

Retraining the brain to refocus on needs in the face of uncooperative behaviour is one of the most powerful tricks in the book, and it’s worked amazingly well for me so far.