What Do Children and Young People Need from Us, the Adults?

Kristijan Musek Lešnik
Nov 19, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Nov 26, 2025

What do young people truly need from us? First of all, they need relationships that are warm, structured, and consistent. Relationships in which they are given love, support, encouragement, expectations, boundaries, consequences, and the power of adult example.

“Young people grow through relationships.”

Every child looks to the adults around them to understand the world — and themselves. Long before they can explain it, they feel the presence we bring: the tone of our voice, the consistency of our actions, the care in our attention.

Children and young people need more from us than instructions or advice. They need love that creates safety and belonging. Support that helps them stand back up when life gets difficult. Encouragement that reminds them they are capable of growing and learning.

They also need expectations that set direction and purpose, boundaries that create a sense of security, and consequences that teach responsibility. Above all, they need a living example — adults whose actions reflect the values they talk about.

Let’s look at how we can embody these essentials in everyday life — as parents, teachers, and mentors who guide with both strength and kindness. What children and young people (from birth through adolescence) need most is not perfection, but presence: real, caring adults who help them believe in themselves and in life.

A Simple Framework

I like to use a common-sense framework introduced to Slovenian educators by David Lega, a former Swedish Paralympian— with a few additions inspired by our own reflections.

The Four Essentials: What Every Child Needs

In his lecture to Slovenian school administrators, David Lega highlighted four essentials children need from adults for healthy development:

Love — tells them they belong.
Support — tells them they are not alone.
Encouragement — gives them courage to try, to fall, and to rise again.
Expectations — show that we believe in their potential and trust them to grow.

At first glance, these seem obvious. Look closely, and you see how deeply they shape a young person’s sense of safety, self-worth, and possibility. Together, they form a foundation for emotional and moral development.

Adding Two More: Boundaries and Consequences

In my later countless conversations with teachers and parents, one insight kept returning: young people do not need warmth alone — they also need structure. So we added two more essentials:

Boundaries — provide a sense of security. They mark where safety ends and responsibility begins.
Consequences — teach that actions have meaning and that choices shape the world around us.

Without boundaries, love can become permissive.

Without consequences, encouragement loses its weight.

Together, they help children learn self-discipline, respect, and integrity.

The Final Element: Our Example

And yet, something was still missing to this list — so we added the last point. Something more powerful than all the words and advice teachers and parents can ever give: the importance of personal example.

Children watch us constantly. They notice the small things — how we speak when we’re tired, how we handle mistakes, how we treat others, how we respond when things go wrong. They learn not only from what we say, but from what we do.

When adults live the values they want to teach — kindness, fairness, perseverance, honesty — children don’t just imitate; they internalize. They begin to believe that goodness is possible because they’ve seen it with their own eyes.

The Power of Your Presence

As educators and teachers, you are among the most influential adults in children’s lives — often spending more waking hours with them than their families do. The tone you set, the respect you show, the empathy you model — all of this shapes how young people will later relate to others.

Your classroom becomes a mirror: through your example, they learn how to connect, how to listen, how to trust. Every gesture, every look, every word leaves a trace. What you do today — in your lessons, your laughter, your quiet encouragement — will echo in their lives long after they leave your care.

So, what Children and Young People Need Most?

Love
Support
Encouragement
Expectations
Boundaries
Consequences
A living example to follow

These are not luxuries. They are the soil in which character grows — and the roots from which resilience and well-being take hold.

Reflection

Every child’s story is shaped by the adults who believe in them. When we love wisely, support consistently, encourage bravely, and model the values we wish to see, we offer the most powerful gift of all: the confidence to become their best selves.