Good Enough Parenting: Meeting Your Child's Emotional Needs

Good parenting is not about being perfect. Every parent has limits. No one can be fully available, fully attuned, and fully responsive every moment of the day. What children need is good enough parenting: consistent care, repair after mistakes, and moments of real connection they can return to. A child’s needs are not only physical. Food, rest, and protection matter, but so do acceptance, attunement, emotional connection, and the feeling of being known. Even a few minutes of steady, present connection can help a child feel more secure in the world. If you didn’t receive that kind of connection growing up, it can still be worked on now. With the right support, you can begin to understand what was missing and heal the places that learned to go without. And if you're a parent yourself, learning about how to meet not only your kid's needs, but also your own, can help both of you grow to be healthy. Our 12 Basic Needs course and Parent Bootcamp are great resources for learning about this. Learn more at timfletcher.ca. This is a throwback to my conversation with Theo Von on his podcast back in 2024. It was an incredible talk, and we touched on a lot of deep childhood wounds.