Essential Principles of Parenting:
A Five-Part Model
Isabella McKenzie Parker © 2010
Secret # 6.
An important key to building that sound foundation of Self Worth is awareness of what the basic emotional needs of kids are. What do they need in order to feel valued? I have identified five basic emotional needs that contribute to feeling valued and the development of a child’s Self Worth. ALIAS is the acronym of these five feelings the child needs to experience.
The child needs to experience:
A – feeling ATTACHED
L – feeling LOVED
I – feeling IMPORTANT
A – having APPROVAL (feeling ACCEPTED and feeling ACKNOWLEDGED)
S – feeling SAFE
How parents treat their kids (ie, what they say and do or don’t say and don’t do) will result in these ALIAS needs being met, unmet or violated. If ALIAS needs are met, kids will have a healthy sense of Self Worth. When parents fail to treat their kids in ways that result in them feeling valued – whether through lack of knowledge of how to do that or because of indifference – the kids will interpret this to mean they are not valued. They believe that their parents think they are
unworthy of having their needs met, unworthy of even making the effort - and internalise this lack of value or unworthiness as their own self value. Therefore, unmet ALIAS needs will result in some degree of low Self Worth. When parents violate their kids’ ALIAS needs – whether intentionally or unintentionally – not only will the kids experience some degree of low Self Worth, they will also experience some degree of anger. Anger may be experienced as various forms such as resentment or hurt. Since kids are dependent on the parents for care, they must not risk alienating the parent by expressing this anger. Therefore, anger has to be repressed, since if parents are alienated, the risk is that they might retaliate, punish, abuse, reject, ignore, neglect or abandon the child. This risk is perceived as being real since, in violating the child’s needs, the parent is believed to have already demonstrated placing a low value on the child. If kids have put in extra effort (what I refer to as beyond reasonable effort) to elicit meeting an ALIAS need from a parent, but that parent continues to fail to meet the need, or even appears to withhold it, then kids will be angry (repressed). (Suggest: Read "Anger" under "Self Esteem Parenting" and "Repressed Anger" under "More Info").
Note that the emphasis is on feelings the child needs to experience since these feelings are indicators or signals that they are valued, their ‘care eliciting’ behaviour is effective in eliciting parental ‘care’ and their behaviour is acceptable to
their parents. Conversely, negative feelings such as feeling unloved, unimportant, rejected or unsafe are indicators or signals that they are not valued. They may be subconsciously interpreted by the child to mean that their ‘care eliciting’ behaviour is
ineffective and other strategies need to be adopted. Alternatively, the subconscious interpretation may be that the parents do not think their kids are worth making the effort to meet their ALIAS needs. All kids will experience similar emotional reactions (of varying degree) to parenting behaviour, but how they respond to the feelings and subliminal messages they receive probably depends a lot on genetic temperament. For example, kids with a persevering temperament will continue ‘care eliciting behaviour’, increasing their efforts, where as kids who are less persevering may give up easily. An avoidant temperament may give up making efforts to avoid repeated negative feelings associated with feeling rejected (again) if needs are not met (repeatedly).
While it is true that kids need to be loved, what is more relevant to kids is that they feel loved. What parents think and feel about their kids is not relevant when it comes to kids feeling valued and developing Self Worth. Hence, parenting behaviour needs to be relevant to elicit feelings. For example, when a child is being hugged, cuddled and kissed, it feels loved. On the other hand, although parents do things for their kids out of love for them, having clean underwear in the drawer and healthy food in their lunch box does not elicit that warm fuzzy feeling of feeling loved. What counts is the subjective experience of the child – feelings elicited by parenting behaviour and perceptions of what that behaviour means in terms of valuing the child.
Well, that is enough on the theory and rationale. Now for the nitty gritty of parenting ‘how to’ that will meet these ALIAS needs and build a sound foundation of Self Worth.
Secret #7.
CAARP, representing "Essential Principles of Parenting", is the acronym for the classes or types of parenting behaviour required to meet the ALIAS emotional needs. Combined, CAARP-ALIAS is a psycho-dynamic Model of Child Emotional Development or a Model of Development of Self worth.
Classes of parenting Behaviour which elicit ALIAS Feelings:
1. C – CONNECTION feeling ATTACHED
2. A – AFFECTION feeling LOVED
3. A – ATTENTION feeling IMPORTANT
4. R – RECOGNITION feeling ACCEPTED/ACKNOWLEDGED
5. P – PROTECTION feeling SAFE
The five classes of parenting behaviour that result in ALIAS needs being met – or else unmet or violated - are discussed in Parts 1 - 5.
After you have read the information in each of Parts 1 - 5, it may seem to you that the best way to ensure your kids have a healthy sense of Self Worth, Self Esteem and Wellbeing, long term, is to engage in heaps and heaps of CAARP behaviours. ‘Heaps’, yes, but not ‘heaps and heaps’. As with anything in life, more does not mean better and can create as many problems as having nothing. CAARP behaviour in 'excess' is not part of the CAARP-ALIAS model per se, but is more about parents seeking to meet their own unmet child needs. So, in the interests of optimal parenting, 'excessive' parenting will be discussed at the end of each Part.
Secret # 6.
An important key to building that sound foundation of Self Worth is awareness of what the basic emotional needs of kids are. What do they need in order to feel valued? I have identified five basic emotional needs that contribute to feeling valued and the development of a child’s Self Worth. ALIAS is the acronym of these five feelings the child needs to experience.
The child needs to experience:
A – feeling ATTACHED
L – feeling LOVED
I – feeling IMPORTANT
A – having APPROVAL (feeling ACCEPTED and feeling ACKNOWLEDGED)
S – feeling SAFE
How parents treat their kids (ie, what they say and do or don’t say and don’t do) will result in these ALIAS needs being met, unmet or violated. If ALIAS needs are met, kids will have a healthy sense of Self Worth. When parents fail to treat their kids in ways that result in them feeling valued – whether through lack of knowledge of how to do that or because of indifference – the kids will interpret this to mean they are not valued. They believe that their parents think they are
unworthy of having their needs met, unworthy of even making the effort - and internalise this lack of value or unworthiness as their own self value. Therefore, unmet ALIAS needs will result in some degree of low Self Worth. When parents violate their kids’ ALIAS needs – whether intentionally or unintentionally – not only will the kids experience some degree of low Self Worth, they will also experience some degree of anger. Anger may be experienced as various forms such as resentment or hurt. Since kids are dependent on the parents for care, they must not risk alienating the parent by expressing this anger. Therefore, anger has to be repressed, since if parents are alienated, the risk is that they might retaliate, punish, abuse, reject, ignore, neglect or abandon the child. This risk is perceived as being real since, in violating the child’s needs, the parent is believed to have already demonstrated placing a low value on the child. If kids have put in extra effort (what I refer to as beyond reasonable effort) to elicit meeting an ALIAS need from a parent, but that parent continues to fail to meet the need, or even appears to withhold it, then kids will be angry (repressed). (Suggest: Read "Anger" under "Self Esteem Parenting" and "Repressed Anger" under "More Info").
Note that the emphasis is on feelings the child needs to experience since these feelings are indicators or signals that they are valued, their ‘care eliciting’ behaviour is effective in eliciting parental ‘care’ and their behaviour is acceptable to
their parents. Conversely, negative feelings such as feeling unloved, unimportant, rejected or unsafe are indicators or signals that they are not valued. They may be subconsciously interpreted by the child to mean that their ‘care eliciting’ behaviour is
ineffective and other strategies need to be adopted. Alternatively, the subconscious interpretation may be that the parents do not think their kids are worth making the effort to meet their ALIAS needs. All kids will experience similar emotional reactions (of varying degree) to parenting behaviour, but how they respond to the feelings and subliminal messages they receive probably depends a lot on genetic temperament. For example, kids with a persevering temperament will continue ‘care eliciting behaviour’, increasing their efforts, where as kids who are less persevering may give up easily. An avoidant temperament may give up making efforts to avoid repeated negative feelings associated with feeling rejected (again) if needs are not met (repeatedly).
While it is true that kids need to be loved, what is more relevant to kids is that they feel loved. What parents think and feel about their kids is not relevant when it comes to kids feeling valued and developing Self Worth. Hence, parenting behaviour needs to be relevant to elicit feelings. For example, when a child is being hugged, cuddled and kissed, it feels loved. On the other hand, although parents do things for their kids out of love for them, having clean underwear in the drawer and healthy food in their lunch box does not elicit that warm fuzzy feeling of feeling loved. What counts is the subjective experience of the child – feelings elicited by parenting behaviour and perceptions of what that behaviour means in terms of valuing the child.
Well, that is enough on the theory and rationale. Now for the nitty gritty of parenting ‘how to’ that will meet these ALIAS needs and build a sound foundation of Self Worth.
Secret #7.
CAARP, representing "Essential Principles of Parenting", is the acronym for the classes or types of parenting behaviour required to meet the ALIAS emotional needs. Combined, CAARP-ALIAS is a psycho-dynamic Model of Child Emotional Development or a Model of Development of Self worth.
Classes of parenting Behaviour which elicit ALIAS Feelings:
1. C – CONNECTION feeling ATTACHED
2. A – AFFECTION feeling LOVED
3. A – ATTENTION feeling IMPORTANT
4. R – RECOGNITION feeling ACCEPTED/ACKNOWLEDGED
5. P – PROTECTION feeling SAFE
The five classes of parenting behaviour that result in ALIAS needs being met – or else unmet or violated - are discussed in Parts 1 - 5.
After you have read the information in each of Parts 1 - 5, it may seem to you that the best way to ensure your kids have a healthy sense of Self Worth, Self Esteem and Wellbeing, long term, is to engage in heaps and heaps of CAARP behaviours. ‘Heaps’, yes, but not ‘heaps and heaps’. As with anything in life, more does not mean better and can create as many problems as having nothing. CAARP behaviour in 'excess' is not part of the CAARP-ALIAS model per se, but is more about parents seeking to meet their own unmet child needs. So, in the interests of optimal parenting, 'excessive' parenting will be discussed at the end of each Part.