2 Things Every Child Needs to Learn

I have worked with lots of children and teenagers throughout the years. When I begin treatment, I almost always tell the child’s caregivers that every child needs to learn two things, including theirs. Then, I ask the caregivers to guess what those two things are. It is a blast hearing the things they come up with before I tell them what I was thinking.

Two Things Every Child Needs to Learn… Really!

1. You don’t always get what you want.

2. Sometimes, you have to do some things that you don’t want to do.

These are the two things that I am convinced every child needs to learn. And I’ve never had a caregiver disagree with me.

When you think about it, you can usually tell how mature a person is by the degree to which they have learned these two lessons. Over the past 35 years, I’ve met plenty of adults who haven’t learned these two concepts. Relationships often falter because one of the partners hasn’t learned these two lessons.

Sure, there are plenty of things that I want as soon as I realize I want them. As I’ve gotten older even, it seems that I have a greater sense of entitlement to these things I want. It’s so sad, but I tell myself, “grow up Mark Neese” because I’ve learned I can’t always get what I want.

Sure, there are plenty of things I don’t want to do. Do I really need to run down the list? We all have things that we don’t want to do because they aren’t fun or are too difficult. But we do them anyway because we’re mature adults who know that sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.

I’ve seen households and families where the children have no rules, no structure, and no expectations. The homes of these families are usually a wreck. The kids are a mess. And the main cause of these situations of disarray is the caregiver forgot that they needed to teach their children two simple things.

In my therapy sessions, I talk about this a lot with older children and younger adolescents. I tell them that they need to learn these two rules and then I have them recite them. I tell them that life is going to be much harder for them than it needs to be if they don’t learn and accept these two rules. I tell them that it’s much easier to be cooperative. That’s it. Learn to be cooperative and life will be much easier.

I am happy to say that most of the children I work with and teach these rules to grow and mature as soon as they learn these two important life lessons. Watching them grow is one of the perks of my job. Remember – every child needs to learn these two rules and that’s all it takes.

1. You don’t always get what you want.

2. Sometimes, you have to do some things that you don’t want to do.