Parenting Advice: What Your Kids Need Most From You

Looking for parenting advice? Children are some of the most vulnerable people in the population, the ones who need the most care and attention. For the most part, parents attend to the basic physiological needs of their children, or at least they should. They provide a place to live, food, and water.

Some parents seem to think that kids need them to buy them nice things and send them to the best schools and take them on nice vacations. They think that money will give children anything they need. Some parents are on the opposite extreme and do not even consider their kids’ needs at all, neglecting and abusing them emotionally, physically, and/or sexually.

Though children indeed need their basic needs met first, they also need other things from their parents/guardians. This article will focus on the things that kids need most from their parents. It is important to know this because it is the job of the parents to take care of their children. They are entrusted by God with this great responsibility.

When children do not have these needs met, they can struggle in school, have attachment issues, unhealthy relationships, and low self-esteem, and get into trouble. They can also struggle with mental illness, emotion management, substance use issues, and their faith.

These are only a few of the reasons why children need the following needs met, but parents should remember that children eventually become adults that can have a lot of problems when these needs are not met in childhood.

Parenting Advice: What Your Kids Need Most from You

Safety (physical and emotional)

The world can be a dark, scary place for children as they continue to grow. Home and family need to be a safe refuge, but unfortunately, this is not the case for many families. They need a safe home to live in that is clean, well-kept, and free from danger. They need food, water, good hygiene, clothes.

They need their parents to pay the electricity bill and the water bill, and the house note. These are the physical needs of children, but they also need to feel emotionally safe. Parents need to help children regularly identify their feelings, feel their feelings, and express them appropriately.

Children also need someone to help them understand why they feel the way they do and tell them that their feelings are OK. When parents dismiss the emotions of children or reprimand them for feeling a certain way, they begin to learn that it is not safe to feel. This can have long-lasting detrimental effects on children.

Unconditional love and positive regard

Children need to know that their parents will always love them, no matter what they do or what mistakes they make. If kids feel like they must do something to earn their parents’ love it can cause problems that will carry over into their relationships for the rest of their lives.

Parents must convey unconditional love, a love that never ends and that always sees the best in children. When children have this, they will feel secure in their relationship and understand what real love is.

Consistency

This may not seem important to some parents, but kids need it. They need parents to implement consistent rhythms and routines, consistent rules and consequences, and consistent family values. Consistency helps children in school, and it can have positive effects at home, too. It helps with better behavior, less tension in the home, less childhood anxiety, and other mental disorders.

An example

Children do not naturally know how to live and behave appropriately. They need to be shown by their parents. Parents can show them how to treat others, how to manage their money, how to maintain healthy relationships, how to handle emotions, and how to implement self-care.

There are infinite possibilities for what parents can teach their children, but it is important to know that kids need to see their parents practice what they preach. Actions speak louder than words, and as children get older, they notice and resent any hypocrisy.

Undivided time and attention

Parents and kids alike are busy with work, school, and extracurricular activities. Some families are rarely home together at the same time, and kids (whether they say it or not) want to spend time with their parents. If parents do not give kids some undivided, distraction-free time with their children when they are young, when they are teenagers, they won’t want to spend any time with them.

Parents need to make time for their children, put away devices, make eye contact, talk, and play. It means a lot to children, and it is one way to ensure they feel loved. Parents need to pay attention when their kids ask them to spend time with them. They won’t ask forever.

Self-control (and healthy management of the adults’ emotions)

Kids often get in trouble and face the consequences of mishandling difficult emotions, such as when they act aggressively when angry or when they refuse to listen when they are upset. However, parents often do not handle their emotions effectively in front of their children.

They lose their tempers and yell. They fall into deep depression. They withdraw when upset. Parents need to have control over their own emotions because they can do and say hurtful things when they don’t. That hurt may cause lasting damage, so if a parent wants a child to learn self-control, then a parent must exercise it, too.

Prayer

Kids need their parents to regularly pray with them and for them out loud, but they also need their parents to pray for them in private. When people pray, things happen. If a child is struggling, they need their parents to be praying for them. The salvation of their children is the most important thing a parent can pray for.

They can pray for their hearts, for their futures, for their forgiveness. “Prayer is where the action is,” John Wesley said. Families are facing a lot of pain, and they need the power of prayer to cover them. Prayer brings hope and peace. It teaches children what it means to trust Jesus and it keeps them grounded in the midst of chaos. Never underestimate what prayer can do for a family.

The Gospel (grace, forgiveness, and the truth of the gospel)

It is not primarily the job of children’s workers and youth leaders at church to instill the truth of the gospel into children. It is the parents’ job. Parents can demonstrate the gospel by showing unconditional love and grace to their children, but they must also teach it to them by reading them the Bible, explaining the devastating nature of sin, what Jesus did for them, and what it means.

They can show them what it means to forgive when it is hard. They can show them that Jesus’ grace is freely given, that the gospel is not based on performance and good deeds. Every parental action can put the gospel on display, even the mistakes parents make. When parents apologize and ask children for forgiveness, it can show how much everyone needs Jesus.

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Parents will not be able to perfectly meet the needs of their children. We will all make mistakes, and will struggle to consistently be the parents our children need us to be. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, and it is not meant to make parents feel guilty for failing in these ways.

It is simply meant to inform parents of what their children need. When we do not meet these needs as we should, we need to be teachable and work to grow. We can apologize and own their mistakes, but if we consistently do not meet these needs for our children, children may suffer for it.

If you would benefit from additional parenting advice, we invite you browse our counselor directory and schedule a counseling appointment today. We would be happy to work with you and your family to meet your relational and mental health needs.