I was listening to a new podcast and among many great things Jessica Lahey mentioned the basic human psychological needs based on the self determination theory are autonomy, competence and connection.
Jessica works primarily with children and the podcast had heaps of parenting nuggets and is certainly worth a listen.
The self determination theory was interesting as I hadn’t heard it before.
The definition by Wikipedia is as follows: Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people’s inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It is concerned with the motivation behind choices people make without external influence and interference.
I homeschooled my boys until my oldest was in grade 6 without any knowledge of this theory whatsoever.
I loved it and to this day I am ridiculously grateful for the time we had together.
In so many ways I do not love the institution of school as it promotes fitting in, group mentality, and u don’t like that some teachers are dictators and bullies….but I also knew our world had become very small at home and the boys needed exposure to new things.
It took me about a month before I started to see that even though homeschooling was great in so many ways, school offered them the personal autonomy we couldn’t achieve at home.
I didn’t know autonomy was a basic psychological need, but I could see what a difference it made to the kids to have their own thing away from us.
They had their own stories and experiences in life now, and even though school came with different challenges, they were out of the nest and handling them as best they could.
It’s funny how we can see what’s good for the kids, but we don’t apply the same principles to ourselves. I’m always guilty of this.
I still struggle to have my own thing.
But I’m beginning to understand how important it is to have my own little piece of the day/week and to have my own stories and life experiences and to be challenged and grow through the challenges… which builds one of the other needs, competence.
As for connection, it seems it’s always been the most important to me.