What Do Our Children Need? A Reflection on Emotional Care

Reflections on safety, love, and meaning in the emotional life of children.

I am not a wise person, but I am a bridge. Or, let’s say, an interpreter. I try to grasp meaning by listening carefully and then pass it on —as a way to help us all better understand a dimension of reality we live within. In doing so, I travel — like an adventurer — to wiser sources and return with what I find there as a gift for the community.

Here at ON Care, we serve families — so I keep a constant ear to their concerns. It’s no surprise that raising children is a source of anxiety and ambiguity for the parents who lead those families. That’s why I often find myself — even though I’m not a father, just an uncle — thinking about these matters with thoughtful attention and care, and traveling to places in search of help-gifts I can bring back and offer to them.

In my last post, I tried to offer a simple and elemental framework for thinking through the impact of our anger on our children. It was prompted by a conversation with a mother, whose concern was trauma. I drew from Gabor Maté’s The Myth of Normal [1] to offer an initial understanding of trauma.

I want to continue exploring that subject, since in that post I left off with the question of what children actually need — not just to avoid trauma, but to grow fully and healthily. I'm returning now to contribute further to that question, drawing once again from Maté.

To raise a living being

To know what something needs is to know what it is. Needs are always relative to the nature of a thing — to what is good and fitting for it. What is good for a human being is quite different from what is good for a refrigerator or an oak tree. So, in order to think clearly about what our children need, we first have to make explicit what we understand a human being to be. I’ll approach this step by step, revealing the full picture part by part.

What is a living being? A living being is something that moves from within — something that carries in itself the impulse and direction of its own development. That’s why we once spoke of “animated beings”: beings that are moved by an inner soul, a principle of life. A seed becomes an oak tree — not because someone programs it from the outside, but because it knows how to become what it is. A refrigerator doesn’t do that. It doesn’t grow, or unfold, or pursue anything. It simply functions, as long as something else sustains it.

But not all living beings unfold with the same fullness. We can see, for example, with oak trees, that some grow to their fullest. They exhibit health, beauty, and vitality — in their trunks, leaves, and overall form. And sometimes, they don’t. Why? Because the landscape in which they grow may be more or less favorable: with more or less nutrients, more or less light, with pests, or with other trees competing for resources. A plant that doesn’t receive light is a plant we know will not mature — and will eventually die before it reaches its plenitude.

So, when we say we are raising an oak tree, what are we doing? We care for the context in which it grows. We don’t force its growth; we offer the conditions it needs: soil, water, light. That’s how we help it become what it already carries within.

And when we look at how elephants raise their young, we see the same principle: the task is to provide a space where the calf can play, be fed, be protected. The baby elephant moves on its own — in its own time, in its own manner.

The point is: life seeks its own unfolding. And whether it thrives or withers depends on the milieu in which it grows.

This is precisely the approach that Gabor Maté invites us to take when thinking about what children need [2]. Our children are living beings — beings that move spontaneously toward what they need. You don’t need to tell a baby to eat when she’s hungry. What the child needs is access to food when hunger appears. What the child needs is a context where her needs can be fulfilled. To raise them, then, is primarily to provide that milieu.

But what must that context provide? We are not oak trees — though we are, in a sense, vegetative beings: we need light and nutrients like plants. But we also need more.

So let’s go deeper into the forest: we are living beings, yes — but also animal beings. And therefore, the context for our fulfillment must include the needs we carry by virtue of our animal nature.

To raise an animal being

What’s particularly interesting about Gabor Maté’s approach is that he draws our attention to the fact that human beings are emotional beings. That is: the emotional dimension is not peripheral or accidental — it lies at the core of human life. But I would add that the same is true for other members of the animal kingdom.

Just as a refrigerator has a physical or mechanical dimension, animal beings have an emotional one. And just as we have biochemical needs that must be met through respiration or nutrition, we also have emotional needs — especially as social animals.

To say that we are emotional beings is to say that our movement — and the direction of that movement — is emotional. To be emotioned is to be moved toward something. Our emotions are the evolved expression of a basic feature of all conscious life: pain and pleasure. These are our most fundamental signals for safety and survival — the shared language of all sentient organisms.

Pain signals danger. Pleasure signals safety.

Fear anticipates pain. Joy and excitement indicate movement toward life.

When my dog first arrived, she was terrified. She wouldn’t move, not even to eat. She felt the new environment as unsafe, threatening. But once she began to feel safe, a different dog appeared: more curious, affectionate — and voracious.

I don’t know what happened before she came to us, but she doesn’t play with other dogs. She’s always on alert, or else completely indifferent to them. Her emotional state is a direct expression of how she perceives her environment — and that emotional orientation shapes her ability to flourish.

Social animals have evolved emotions that depend on the group. They don’t just need to survive; they need to belong. And for that, they need to feel cared for. A snake, for example, is not a social creature. It doesn’t feel loneliness — but it does feel fear when threatened.

Because we humans are deeply social, our emotional need for safety is inseparable from the presence of others. We need to feel that we are within the group — seen by it, held by it, protected by it. That, in a sense, is why we need to be loved — and why our nervous systems are so finely attuned to the social dimension of life [3]. That is the expectation our organisms have evolved with.

So, as young animals, what we need as children is to feel safe and loved — to trust that our needs will be met, and that we will be protected when danger arrives, since we cannot protect ourselves. When that doesn’t happen, our growth is compromised.

Let me unpack this point a bit more, since it’s the most fundamental one. What matters is what the child feels — not necessarily what the adult intends. Even when parents are present and loving, a climate of stress around the child — even if never directed at them — can be perceived as danger. Children may not understand the cause, but their bodies register the threat. They don’t relax; they remain alert and vigilant — just like their parents. That’s why the kind of context a child needs is one that stays attuned to their emotional world: not just to provide safety, but to make sure it feels safe. The first act of love, we must remember, is to recognize the subjectivity of the other.

Now, some may imagine that the best way to protect a child is to shield her from everything — but that’s not the case. Why? Because perhaps the deepest sense of safety an animal can experience comes from knowing it is able to protect itself. That’s why, in order to provide emotional security, children must gradually learn how to take care of themselves.

Let’s add another layer. In order to feel safe, animals need a certain degree of predictability — a basic sense of structure. This is what routines and habits provide in family life. A home that is too unstructured, too unpredictable — without rhythm or consistency — can undermine a child’s sense of security.

It’s remarkable how cyclical animals can be when you observe them closely. Life itself is cyclical. The need to live in an organized context is not unique to humans.

Yes, our children need to be treated like good animals — and that is true.

But it’s not the whole truth.

We are human. And to be human is to be in a very particular way.

To raise a human being

Gabor Maté identifies four fundamental emotional needs: a deep sense of connection and contact; attachment security — so the child can relax, knowing they don’t have to earn the right to be cared for; permission to feel and express their own emotions; and free play [4]. What I’ve tried to do here is simplify these, because from an evolutionary perspective, we can see that most of them are derivations of one central imperative: survival. That is, we need to feel loved in order to feel safe. But as human beings, we need something more than survival.

To show what I mean, let’s turn to the need for play — to let children play freely with other children, not for the sake of productivity, education, or future success, but simply to play: “agenda-free, interactive, engaging joy and imagination.”[5] As far as I’ve read and studied Maté’s work, this distinctly human dimension of play is not something he emphasizes.

In a sense, play is not uniquely human. Many animals play, and they do so as a way of learning. Learning what? How to fight, hunt, explore — in short, how to survive better within their landscapes. And we human beings, as animals, do that too.

But there’s something different in how children — and adults — play.

Children’s play becomes a game: an activity that unfolds in a world that exists only because it has meaning. Horses and dogs may run together at full speed, but they don’t run to prove who is faster. That idea — of proving, comparing, simulating — belongs to the realm of meaning.

Other animals don’t inhabit meaning the way we do. They live in landscapes. We live in a world. Mountains and rivers, trees and stones — and each of us — carry meaning for the human being.

To be human is to inhabit a world charged with meaning. So when children play, they’re not just practicing survival. They’re trying to understand — to grasp the meaning of things.

A child playing with Barbies is asking, What does it mean to be a mother? A child playing soldier is exploring, What does it mean to be strong, to fight? They give voices to their toys. They simulate conflict and care. They rehearse being someone. Because that is how they begin to make sense of the world — and of themselves.

It’s through play that human beings begin to make meaning: first through bodily expression, and later through symbolic elaboration — playing doctor, playing teacher, playing father.

To block play is like blocking crawling and asking the child to walk.

Children must be able to play freely — that is, without adult direction or agenda — because it is through play that they express their own understanding. And understanding, by its nature, can only be one’s own.

And they don’t just need to play. They need to play with other children.

Because understanding grows through shared meaning. Adults tell stories, argue, explain. Children play to make sense of the world.

They can show emotion to an adult — but it’s not the same as sharing it, in its raw and equal intensity, with another child and build upon it together.

So yes, children need to feel safe and loved. But they also need to understand what’s going on in this life and this world. That means they need our attention and care to help them make sense of their experiences — their emotions, their friendships, their losses, their bodies, and so on.

And I believe this is the task that requires the greatest patience from us.

So, my conclusion for now is this: to raise good children, we must help them feel safe, help them feel loved, and help them make sense of things.

But we must also remember: there will never be a universal action that makes someone feel loved, just as there will never be a single sentence that helps everyone understand. While all human beings share the need for safety, love, and meaning, the experience of those needs — and what fulfills them — is always deeply personal. Therefore, to raise a human being, then, is to act with empathy and attention — adapting ourselves to each case, again and again.

Final Comment: It’s not your fault

I know this has been long, and perhaps intense. And before we close, I want to say something that matters deeply: it’s not your fault.

This is one of Gabor Maté’s most powerful insights — that many children are not traumatized because they weren’t loved, but because the world around them wasn’t built to meet their emotional needs. Not then. Not now.

We often speak of childhood pain as if it were a private failure. But it is, more often than not, the consequence of collective structures — of a society that too often leaves parents alone, exhausted, unsupported.

A child may feel abandoned not because her father doesn’t love her, but because he has to work two jobs to survive.

A mother may yell not because she is cruel, but because she hasn’t slept in weeks and the world expects her to keep going as if nothing were happening.

Sometimes, the stress isn’t just emotional. It’s material. Literal.

We may be, quite literally, in the midst of war — economic, political, or domestic. And the world may not feel safe at all — not for the child, and not for the parent either.

And there’s something else: to meet a child’s emotional needs, a parent must know how. And how do you give what you yourself never received?

That doesn’t erase responsibility. But it situates it.

To raise a child, we need more than good intentions. We need rest. We need support.

We need a world that makes space for parenthood — and far too often, ours does not.

So if you’ve felt guilt as you’ve read this, I invite you to place that guilt gently to the side.

And in its place, let something else grow: clarity, perhaps. Or tenderness. Or the desire to try again — not from a place of shame, but from one of love.

Notes

1. Maté, Gabor, and Daniel Maté. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, & Healing in a Toxic Culture. New York: Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2022.

2. Ibid, 114–8.

3. Ibid, 121.

4. Ibid, 131-6.

5. Ibid, 134.