The Myth of Resilient Children
I recently saw a post on Instagram that was aimed at debunking the myth that children are inherently resilient. The author’s point was this: if children are resilient then why do we have a generation of adults seeking mental health help? They went on to say that children are not as resilient as we would like to think they are - their pain is just easier to ignore. Wow! Talk about a heavy hitter! If you take a second to really let that sink in it might not be something you want to hear. But, I think this is something we all need to hear and become aware of so that collectively and individually we can begin to take action.
How to be a Parent
Most parents do the best they can with what they know. They take what they have learned about how to parent from the adults that were in their life when they were young and apply it as best they can. Sometimes this looks like aspiring to be like the parent figures they had in their own childhood, and sometimes this looks like striving to be anything but what they saw from the adults in their life. Usually, parents are genuinely trying to do a good job at raising their children. This is not always the case though, and there are more than enough parents who are not invested enough to care at all about the well-being of their children. But no matter what the intention was on their part, many parents do not have a full understanding of the needs of their children, and without this, they are set up to fail at meeting those needs.
As much as we want to believe that children can just “get over” anything that happens to them, we know that children are vulnerable. There is no escaping the reality that they need a higher level of care than adults do. They need the care of others to get their basic needs met, including food and shelter. That is easy enough to accept as reality. But, do we also accept that they need emotional and relational support as well? We know that children need the proper nutrition to help their bodies develop and that they need cognitive stimulation to help their brains grow. Do we also stop to consider that it is just as important for children to be nurtured emotionally and relationally in order to thrive? We want children to grow up well, to have a healthy sense of self, and an ability to relate well to others, but do we know how to help that happen? Caring for children’s needs goes far beyond making sure they have a healthy meal to eat, a safe place to sleep, and proper stimulation to help their brains grow. What is just as essential for the healthy development of every child is the love, consistent presence, and tender care of reliable, attentive caregivers. And yet it seems that this is something that so few children receive.
The Hierarchy of Needs
Human needs have long been placed into categories to help us make sense of their importance. Things like food, water, air, sleep, and shelter are generally understood to be “essential” to life. We know that anyone who does not have access to these things will not survive. Usually, these physiological needs are at the bottom of a pyramid - they are considered the foundational needs that all others must be built on top of. The next tier is safety, then social, then esteem, and lastly self-actualization. The thought is that we need our physiological needs met before we can be or feel safe. We need things like security, structure, and predictability to feel safe before we can give and receive affection in social relationships. We need positive social relationships so that we can develop a strong and healthy sense of self. And lastly, we need to be able to play and explore to develop into and beyond our full potential. But what if we have it all wrong? What if these things don’t stack up in a nice little pyramid?
What I have come to believe, through my life and my work with clients, is that many needs children have that are not generally labeled essential actually are just that. When children do not receive love and care from their parents or caregivers, their needs are not being met. When children do not receive consistent and reliable love and care from their parents or caregivers, their needs are not being met. When children do not have the regular opportunity to play and connect with other children in safe ways, their needs are not being met. When children have to take care of others in their life from a young age, especially if that includes their own parents or siblings, their needs are not being met. When children have to show up or behave a certain way to make their parents or caregivers happy, their needs are not being met.
The need for safety, social connection, a positive sense of self, and the opportunity for self-actualization are far from non-essential. It is true that we can and have adapted to life without these things in many ways, but there are consequences. Living without these things puts tremendous stress on our bodies, minds, and souls, and growing up without them sets us up for a lifetime of struggle. When we are not safe we are under a constant state of threat and our bodies are living with elevated stress and anxiety. When we do not have safe, caring connections with ourselves and others we do not have the ability to trust. This sabotages any relationship in our lives. It is all of these things together that create the opportunity to grow into and beyond our full potential, and the need for all of these things starts before we are even born. Children cannot and should not be seen as only needing food, water, shelter, and some cognitive stimulation; children have all of these needs, just like adults do.
How to Overcome Unmet Needs
Maybe you yourself did not have these needs met when you were a child. Is all hope of you having a healthy sense of self and a healthy ability to be in relationships with others lost? Please hear me when I say, no, all hope is not lost! If you did not have consistent, loving care when you were young you can still learn the skills and tools needed for having a healthy relationship with yourself and those around you. You may have picked up some unhealthy ways of being in the world, perhaps you are always critical towards yourself, always working hard to please everyone around you, withdrawing from friendship and relationships as soon as people come too close, or just staying way too busy to ever give yourself time to think - let alone feel. These might represent how you have learned to live your life, but you are here, reading this blog post and looking for something more.
Not all of us received the nurturing care that we needed as children, but we can heal the wounds in our souls that came from that lack of care, and we can grow healthy and strong relationally and emotionally. Expanding your awareness through tools such as this post can help. As you learn more about yourself I encourage you to embrace loving compassion toward yourself. If that feels like too far of a stretch, therapy can be a place to learn to embrace loving compassion as you explore the things that got you this far in life and ways to grow and become the person you want to be. A good therapist will be your ally on the journey of healing from your childhood and learning to thrive wherever you are in life today.
