If we spend too much time providing things for our kids that they don’t truly need, we can lose sight of what they truly do. I came across an intriguing list in one of John White’s old books and thought this could start a healthy discussion: What do our children truly need? And, by extension, what don’t they need? 

If we spend too much time providing things for our kids that they don’t truly need, we can lose sight of what they truly do.

What Do Children Need From Their Parents?

Most of us know our children don’t need a six-thousand-square-foot home with a pool and a backyard to flourish. They may not even need their own bedroom. But what do they need?

Psychologist John White offers the following. It was a helpful list to reflect on.

“What do children need?

• Children need acceptance.
• They need praise and appreciation.
• They need to learn they can trust their parents not to deceive them or to break promises.
• They need consistency and fairness.
• They need to feel that their fears, their desires, their feelings, their inexplicable impulses, their frustrations and their inabilities are understood by their parents.
• They need to know exactly where the limits are, what is permitted and what is prohibited.
• They need to know that home is a safe place, a place of refuge, a place where they have no need to be afraid.
• They need warm approval when they do well and firm correction when they do wrong.
• They need to learn a sense of proportion.
• They need to know that their parents are stronger than they are, able to weather the storms and dangers of the outer world and also able to stand up to their (children’s) rages and unreasonable demands.
• They need to feel their parents like them and can take time to listen.
• They need perceptive responses to their growing need for independence.

I think this is a pretty good general list for parents to aim for. I’m surprised Dr. White didn’t add (because I know as a Christian he would have agreed—he died in 2002) that children need parents who worship God, admit their own faults and ask for forgiveness, and model faith. They also certainly need to know how to surrender to God for themselves.

      There’s nothing overtly material on this list. Nothing about clothes, entertainment, expensive vacations, sports training, or elite colleges. Yet how often do we focus on those things instead of what White says they truly need?

Would you add anything else?