The needs and rights of the child

The needs of the child
A child's needs depend primarily on age, gender, health and the environment from which the child comes.

From a didactic point of view, we divide the basic needs of the child into:
 * 1) biological;
 * 2) psychic;
 * 3) social;
 * 4) developmental.

Biological needs
Basic biological needs primarily include:
 * adequate nutrition according to age, quantity and quality;
 * satisfying hygiene requirements – cleanliness, heat, light, etc.;
 * the need for sufficient immunity – i.e. vaccination;
 * stimulation – enough adequate stimuli for the nervous system and related movement development;
 * preventive and curative care, rehabilitation, or resocialization care.

Psychological needs
Satisfying psychological needs allows the child not only to develop adequately in the area of intellect, feelings and will, but also in behavior, interaction with the environment, understanding of oneself and people, social values and the entire environment of which the child is an important part.

It primarily belongs to the basic psychological needs :
 * The need for an appropriate supply of stimuli – i.e. stimulation at the right time, in the appropriate quantity and quality. The child's central nervous system must be tuned both biologically and psychologically in order to work "at full capacity".
 * The need for the meaning of the world - this means the fact that the many stimuli that the child receives become knowledge and experience. This requires a certain sense and order, stimuli must be gradually organized and processed. If stimuli are presented to the child in a certain logical sequence and the child is rewarded with sympathetic attention from educators, then the learning process can develop quite easily as a matter of course.
 * The need for security - is satisfied primarily in the child's relationship with adult educators. Research has shown that a child desperately needs reassurance in how an adult will react in given situations. This means that he can anticipate the reaction of the parent (educator) based on his experience.
 * The need for awareness of one's own identity - one's own "I" - one's own social value, which under normal conditions appears between the second and third year of life. A child creates an image of himself according to how people accept him, how they evaluate his expressions, what they appreciate, what they reject, etc. It is mainly about the closest people and their opinions. The identity (or self-confidence) formed in this way affects his experience of social relations and the development of his social attitudes in the next developmental stages.
 * The need for an open future - i.e. clear life perspectives. It is a need in the animal kingdom unique to humans. An open future motivates us to activity, activity, while a closed future to apathy, despair, hopelessness. We can encounter this when there is no perspective for the child's normal development, or he has an unfavorable prognosis. This need develops most in younger adolescence, reaches its peak at the time of the peak of reproduction, and decreases again in old age.

Psychological deprivation can manifest itself when an individual is not satisfied for a long time in his psychological needs, which are necessary for the adequate development of his personality. It may happen that he will not be able to adapt, he will behave atypically, sometimes even antisocially.

Social needs
Some authors combine the psychological needs mentioned above with social ones and call them psychosocial. However, man is a social creature and the requirement of optimal socialization is related to this, which is unrealistic without satisfying basic social needs.

Social needs include:
 * the need for love and security;
 * the need to adopt the child;
 * identification with him;
 * developing all his powers and abilities.

Developmental needs
The needs of the child (as mentioned above) change over time, with the growth and development of the child, its peculiarities. An important aspect is motivation, which leads individuals to search for and learn new facts, knowledge and activities.

The rights of the child
The most important milestones in the development of human and especially children's rights:
 * 1924 – Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child;
 * 1959 - Charter of the Rights of the Child - Chicago;
 * 1989 – Convention on the Rights of the Child;
 * 1990 - World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children.

Four distinctive features of the new human rights:
 * all encompassing;
 * individual;
 * congenital;
 * establish claims against the state.

Basic rights of the child:
 * promoting the best interests of the child;
 * the indispensable importance of family;
 * inadmissibility of discrimination;
 * maximum protection against adverse influences and conditions (even before birth);
 * full legal personality of the child;
 * respecting his opinion if he is able to articulate it;
 * participation in public life;
 * full representation of the child's interests and benefits.

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