Our three Needs

This evening in my group Well-Being at Home, I talked about out three needs.
This idea comes from McClelland's Human Motivation Theory. The needs described in the theory are; achievement, affiliation and power.

I think that this is really interesting to think about when we are looking at the emotions and behaviour of our children (and even ourselves).

Say, for example, an older child is trying to help a younger child to do something and the younger one hits them. At first glance it can seem like the younger child is being mean when the older one was trying to help. It is likely that the younger child was motivated by the need to achieve- they wanted to be independent and do it themselves!

Or maybe your child is shouting, being rough or giving some attitude after being at school or childcare- exploring deeper, it could be that they have a need for connection with you and don't know how to express this.

Maybe your child is very controlling around food or clothing, it may appear that they are being "fussy" it could also be because they are feeling out of control in other areas of life and are wanting to control the things that they can.

During these very uncertain times, we will all be struggling with these unmet needs: Lockdown rules will impact on how much connection we can have with loved ones, changes in rules make us feel out of control- we feel we have no power! We may also find it hard to achieve things that we want to because of the situation that we are in.

Now is a good time to reflect on our own needs and those of our children. What is behind the behaviour or feeling? Is it a need for power? Connection? Achievement? Can you meet that need in some way?