Beyond Food and Shelter: What Were You Entitled to as a Child?
Understanding childhood through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
When we begin exploring childhood experiences, it can sometimes be difficult to recognise that something important may have been missing.
People often describe their childhood in terms of what their parents provided:
"I was always fed and clothed."
"We had a nice home."
"My parents did their best."
"I didn't have a bad childhood."
And these things may all be true. But meeting a child's physical needs is only one part of supporting their development.
Children have emotional, psychological and relational needs too.
When these are not consistently met, the effects can sometimes follow us into adulthood, influencing how we experience ourselves, our emotions and our relationships.
What does the United Nations say children need?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), adopted in 1989, sets out the fundamental rights of children.
Many people are familiar with children's rights to food, shelter, education and healthcare. However, the Convention goes much further.
It recognises that children have the right to:
Protection from harm: including physical and mental violence, abuse and neglect (Article 19).
Have their views heard: to express their opinions on matters affecting them and have those opinions taken seriously, in accordance with their age and maturity (Article 12).
Develop as individuals: with recognition of their physical, mental and social development (Articles 6 and 27).
Rest and play: including opportunities for leisure and recreation appropriate to their age (Article 31).
Care and consideration: with their best interests a primary consideration in decisions affecting them (Article 3).
These rights are not simply about keeping children alive. They recognise the importance of creating conditions in which children can develop and thrive.
What about emotional needs?
The Convention provides a framework for recognising the importance of children's wellbeing, but it can also encourage us to consider the everyday emotional experiences of childhood.
Could you express sadness or anger without being frightened of the response?
When you were upset, was there someone who could offer comfort?
Were mistakes treated as opportunities to learn, or as reasons for shame?
Were you allowed to have feelings that were different from those of the adults around you?
Did you feel responsible for keeping the peace or managing a parent's emotions?
These questions aren't a checklist for judging parents. They are ways of exploring the emotional environment in which a child developed.
No parent can respond perfectly all the time. Children don't need perfection. But they do benefit from relationships in which they experience enough safety, care, responsiveness and opportunities for repair when things go wrong.
Why might this affect us as adults?
Children adapt to the environments in which they grow up:
A child who learns that expressing anger leads to conflict may become an adult who finds it difficult to disagree.
A child who feels responsible for a parent's emotional wellbeing may grow into someone who struggles to recognise or prioritise their own needs.
A child whose distress is repeatedly dismissed may begin to question whether their feelings are valid.
These patterns are not inevitable, and our childhood does not determine everything about who we become. But early relationships can shape our expectations of ourselves and other people.
What once helped us maintain connection, reduce conflict or feel safer may eventually become something that causes difficulties in adult relationships.
Understanding what was missing
Exploring childhood isn't necessarily about blaming parents or deciding whether our experiences were bad enough to matter.
Parents may have been doing the best they could with their own circumstances, experiences and resources. We can recognise that while also acknowledging the impact of what was or wasn't available to us.
Sometimes, one of the most significant shifts in counselling comes when someone begins to understand that the needs they had as a child were reasonable:
They weren't asking too much by wanting comfort.
They weren't being difficult by having feelings.
They weren't responsible for managing the emotions of the adults around them.
And needing emotional support did not make them weak or demanding.
You can appreciate what your childhood gave you while also acknowledging what it did not.
Understanding both can help us make sense of the ways we learnt to protect ourselves, the patterns we carry into adulthood, and what we might need now.
Laura Uezzell | Counselling
I work with adults exploring childhood experiences, attachment and relationship patterns, helping them develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships.
Further reading: UNICEF – United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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