Compulsive needers, how to treat children who are never happy?
How many needs must be met to be happy? How to differentiate the caprice from what is essential? Sometimes parents meet children who only ask and make their happiness subject to the acquisition of all their claims, either the attention of their parents, or the purchase of a toy. It seems that they are never happy, that they always need something.
These people are called "compulsive needers ". A behavior that they manifest in their group of their friends and among their family, they constantly repeat the word "I need" accompanied by new desires that prevent them from attaining full happiness.
Constant requirements
The personality of these children is manifested by never being satisfied. They always ask for something new and say they will not be happy until they get it. For example, if they see that their classmates have a new kit, they will create this need in their mind and let their parents know that they need this. Likewise if your friends talk about a new movie in the cinema, they will also want to go, and so on.
In the affective field the "compulsive needy" are also managed, for example, demanding constant attention from their parents or friends. To be happy, they always require attention and it is possible that they even make emotional blackmail, stating that they are not treated correctly. These situations are accompanied by a drama that aims to emphasize the need.
From necessity to desire
It is one thing to need, that is, not to know how to live well until something is obtained, and another to desire. Another very different is to wish, think about how good it would be to get that something, but accept that you can maintain a full life without it. It is very important to understand this difference to the smallest of the house and thus avoid that their life revolves around these requirements and that can influence social development.
Children must understand that happiness does not depend on getting everything whim that goes through your mind. Obviously, they may want something, but obtaining it must involve work and effort, and above all, patience. You can not fulfill all desire quickly and subject happiness to it. There are other things that can brighten up the day and not just materials.
In the affective field, parents should teach that emotional dependence is not true friendship or real love. The relationship in these fields must be based on empathy and understanding, not on the emotional blackmail and in the drama when they are not the center of attention of the group in which they move.
Parents must put norms and limits since they are small so they know what they can and can not acquire. Do not wait until the child grows to make him understand that he can not always acquire everything he wants, it is better to do it since they are very small so that he begins to understand them soon in this way there will be some things that will internalize them without problems.
Verónica Rodríguez Orellana. Director of Coaching Club
