The consumer culture is always selling or touting one product after another, creating an illusion of need. Marketers are incredibly good at it too. Often, we buy things that we think we need and eventually find them stuffed somewhere taking up space in our homes and in our lives. In this article, I argue that beyond basics, what children need to thrive, really thrive is not and will never be material.

To thrive, children need the four basic elements of effective parenting. These include:

• secure attachments
• self-determination,
• constructive discipline
• skills to develop character and competence. 

What Children Need #1: Strong Attachments

Children explore, learn, and thrive when they feel secure in their attachments. Healthy connections with parents, teachers and caregivers provide them with a stable base from which to explore.

Attachment is a critical foundation to every child’s growth and development. Secure attachments allow children to explore, take risks, and aim to reach their full potential without fear or self-doubt. This allows them to reach new and greater heights. Strong adult-child connections provide an invisible emotional security blanket that envelopes them everywhere they go.

Insecure attachments lead to attention-seeking, feelings of inadequacy or struggling for power to exact revenge for feeling insecure. A strong, secure attachment also ensures that the child will more likely respond with cooperation instead of contention. In other words, when children have secure connections, they can focus their energies in constructive instead of destructive ways.

Maintaining Strong Attachments

A good way to develop a strong connection with children is to prioritize quality one-on-one time together. It does not even have to be a large time commitment. For 10-15 minutes do something your child enjoys—a puzzle, Legos, or play a game. This is best for children ages 2-6. For children older than 6, half an hour doing an activity together every week will suffice—bake cookies, build a fort or create a craft. And for teens, spending time together once a month is more than enough. The trick for teens is to make sure the activity you do with your teen is something they find cool and simply cannot resist. Think go-karts, concerts, escape rooms, ziplining or a local sporting event.

Another way to maintain a connection with your child is to make frequent, short contact to check in. Maybe a quick rub of their back, a wave, or a smile while at play. The idea is to let her know you’re keeping an eye on her, you’re there and she’s safe.

What Children Need #: A Sense of Self-Determination

Children have an innate desire to exert control over their lives. This sense of personal agency and desire for autonomy grows with children from infancy and well into adulthood. The need for this is natural and should be encouraged. Your energies as a parent should be to harness this and direct it, not against you, but towards constructive goals. A my-way-or-the-highway approach can backfire by leading to unnecessary power struggles and rebellion.

Instead, facilitate your child’s growth by helping her develop a sense of power linked to responsibility. Encourage your child to think of ways to collaboratively solve problems by asking input. Teach her adaptive skills. Make agreements with her so she can can learn respect, negotiation, and cooperation with you and with others.

A good way to give your child some power is to concede decisions that don’t matter as much to you. For example, let your child buy whatever toothbrush she wants or which nearby park she would like to visit. You can also give your child choices or teach her to negotiate constructively. For example, you can give your child a choice that reaches the same result:

• “I understand that you don’t want to brush your teeth right now and it’s almost bedtime. Would you instead like to take a bath first and then brush your teeth afterward?”

Choices allow your child to share in the decision-making and promote constructive cooperation.

What Children Need # 3: Constructive Discipline

I consider Constructive Discipline to be almost literal—it builds children up instead of tearing them down (with punishment). The focus of constructive discipline is on not dwelling on mistakes but focusing on solutions.

Constructive parents aren’t concerned about assigning blame, shaming the child, or punishing the child for misbehavior. Rather, they look deeper at what caused the behavior in the first place. They think about how it can be prevented in the future. And then take the steps to prevent the behavior from happening by addressing the problem after reflection.

For example, let’s say a child hits another to gain access to a toy. A constructive parent will not blame or shame the child. They instead would calmly explain to the child that they cannot allow them to hurt anyone. Then they would pivot and focus on teaching the child the appropriate, replacement skill of asking for a turn. Teaching the replacement skill can decrease hitting because the child can access the desired toy without aggression.

What Children Need #4: Competence Skills and Character

Strong emotional skills, including self-awareness and self-regulation, allow children to recognize their own emotions and how they influence their behavior. This awareness allows them to regulate their emotions. And regulating emotions means managing their stress levels, controlling any wayward impulses, and motivate themselves to do good.

Academic and life skills build on children’s core competencies by helping children develop both independence and critical thinking skills. They lead to competence, confidence and help them develop positive attitudes about themselves.

Contributions (chores and helping others) allow children to develop not just life skills but also build character. Contributions develop gratitude, teach the value of hard work, and illustrate that they are part of something bigger than themselves.

Conclusion

Children do not need a lot of material things to thrive. Beyond basic material things, what children truly need to thrive are a combination of love, respect, constructive parenting and skill-building. With these four elements, parents can help their children learn, develop healthy and meaningful relationships with peers and adults. And give them the best foundation to succeed and thrive.

Take good, kind care of yourself and your family,