Our trust shines the light on our children’s best selves. Being given trust builds strength and trustworthiness in them.

Children also trust you to meet their needs well. When you do this, they can meet the world with more confidence and unnecessary troubles are avoided.

Each age, stage and individual child needs different understanding from us, but all children have basic needs that need to be met. It helps for adults to become more conscious of all these needs and perhaps to use a check list for when things are going awry.

It is easy for adults to presume children have adult motivations, but children think, feel and act differently from adults. They need our respect for that. Understanding of a child’s point of view is what they need from us for them to trust us fully. Trust in your children’s essential goodness and their best selves helps to optimize that mutual trust.

You will find help to do this in the following resources: