What Our Children Need To Thrive

The UnBroken Podcast is a call to action to create a different direction, dialogue, and narrative for your life. Dr Rachel Taylor discusses what our children need in order to thrive and how to combat the mental health pandemic in children in this episode, sponsored by A Podcast Company.

It’s not difficult to give children what they need, as long as the adults who care for the children have the capacity to meet these needs in the right way. This episode looks at whether we are empowering parents to do the best for their children and how parents can do things differently to set their child up for success. 

 

Children have the fundamental need and desire to be safe, and free from fear, worry and anxiety. They need to feel secure in the protection that their parents or caregivers provide, and a lot can go wrong with a child that doesn’t feel adequate levels of safety. Feeling safe also extends to what they are being exposed to in terms of online content, gadgets and smartphones. Dr Rachel suggests that there is no such thing as online safety for children. 

 

In order to thrive children need to know they belong and have significance, they are special, individual and unique and they are chosen and cherished by you as their parents. We all want the best for our children, so how can you support them to be the best that they can be by leaning into their uniqueness and difference? In this busy world it’s easy to let something give - but don’t let it be time and interaction with your children. They need you to nurture them. 

 

For any parents listening, ask yourself ‘what kind of adult do I want to be raising’ and ‘what kind of child do I want to be parenting?’ Do you want to be friends with your child, or a parent to your child? The aim of parenting is not to be their friend, but to be a good role model and help them become the best adult they can be. 

 

Topics:

• What do children really need?
• The impact of screen time on children’s development and wellbeing. 
• How to communicate with children.
• The impact of the pandemic on children’s anxiety.
• How children’s brains develop at different ages and stages. 

 

Key takeaways:

• Children need 4 hugs a day for biochemical feedback, 8 hugs a day for maintaining themselves as human beings, and 12 hugs a day in order to grow.
• Children need to see our facial expressions, receive eye contact, have our full attention and communicate with us in non verbal ways as well as verbally. 
• The pandemic has had a huge impact on children, especially babies and toddlers who have had limited exposure to lots of different people. These children need to have small changes that happen over time to avoid feeling overwhelming anxiety.

Resources

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