What Kids Need: Relatedness, Autonomy, Competence

by Jai Flicker

Early on in my work as an educator, I recognized that to help my students truly thrive I needed to support them as individuals, not focus solely on helping them with academic content. It turned out that taking this humanistic approach not only came in handy when a student of mine would come in upset about something that had happened at school, but it also nourished my relationships with students. This, in turn, allowed me to better support them academically. As David Brooks recently pointed out in a NY Times opinion piece: "Students learn from people they love."

For the first several years of my career, I relied on a combination of intuition and common sense to guide my approach to working with students. This was fine, but as my staff at LifeWorks grew I found myself in the position of having to train others. When I went to try to explain what it was that I had been doing that has been working for me, communicating my approach turned out to be more difficult than expected.

Fortunately, it turns out there are brilliant researchers and theorists out there that have devoted their
lives to mapping the territory of human development. When I finally discovered some frameworks that
described in great detail the very phenomena that I had been witnessing for years it came a breath of
fresh air. These theories would help me put language to things that I had previously intuited but struggled to articulate. They helped explain why some of my favorite strategies worked, as well as why some of my less successful ones didn't. These theories mapped out the territory of the interior. Or, perhaps more accurately, they shone light on previously hard to see terrain.

One of the most illuminating theories I have come across is called Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Its
name relates to the fact that one of the keys to motivation is allowing others to chart their own course,
to allow them to be self-determined. This theory has expanded and grown since its inception over forty years ago. Today, hundreds of researchers in dozens of countries contribute to the project of refining this framework, which at its core offers the following insight: When our psychological needs get met, we thrive. When our needs go unmet, we languish.

​Just as we all have physiological needs that must be met for us to survive, in order for us to grow and  thrive psychologically, our basic psychological needs must be met. The problem is, most of us don't have  a clear sense of what these crucial psychological needs are. Fortunately, psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, the founders of Self-Determination Theory, have identified three psychological needs that  we all must meet in order to flourish: autonomy, relatedness and competence.

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​Autonomy 

Autonomy refers to an individual being the source of their own choices. It relates to the expression of free will. Those who exhibit autonomy make choices as an expression of  themselves, not because of  outside pressure or control.  
While autonomy is often thought of as synonymous with the concept of independence, the two concepts  differ  in  important  ways.  To  be  independent  means  to  go  it  alone.  Working  independently  is  not  cooperative  or  collaborative. However, we  can act autonomously while  collaborating  with  other  and  while  allowing  others  to  contribute  meaningfully  to  our  lives.  This  is  possible  as  long  as we  feel empowered to make our own decisions within our relationships, not controlled or coerced. 
All too often, we end up stifling people's sense of autonomy when we get caught up trying to manage  their behavior. One simple alternative to managing behavior is to focus on supporting others as they try  to make tough choices for themselves. Let them bounce ideas off of you. Help them think through various  options or scenarios. Share your own  relevant life experiences so  that  they might learn  from you. To  support another’s autonomy we must allow them to make their own choices. 

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​Relatedness 

Our second fundamental need is that of relatedness. This, of course, refers to our need for connection and for a sense of belonging. Feeling cared for by others, as well as caring for them in return, provides  us with a sense of security and well-being. 
One of  the best ways  to help children develop a strong sense of  relatedness is  to provide  them with  unconditional love. Love that is freely given and is not based on performance or achievement leads to  optimal  development.  This  is because  love  based  on  performance  can  be  lost  if  one's  actions  don't  measure up. Offering conditional love can be an effective way to control behavior, but it does not create  the  secure  context in which  children  thrive.  Conditional love tends  to lead  to a  range  of  undesirable  outcomes,  such as anxiety,  resentment, amotivation, etc. I do not mean  to imply  that it is  somehow  harmful to praise kids for their achievements. We just need to make sure that the message that we love  and care about them regardless of performance is well established first.

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​Competence

The third fundamental need is our need for competence, which occurs when people feel effective in their  interactions  with  the  world.  We  all  need  opportunities  to  exercise  and  express  our  skills  and  capacities. Not  everyone  is  going  to  be  good  at  everything,  of  course,  but  that  is  not  necessary to  maintain a  healthy  sense  of  competence.  What  we  do need is to  experience  a  reasonable  level  of  competence within at least a few domains. A child who struggles in school but excels in sports, in drama,  or as a musician, will fare better than a child who does not get the chance to shine in any domain. 
One helpful insight into supporting competence comes from the fact that the earlier, far less familiar, term used to name this need was effectance. This word reveals that our need for competence is not only about getting really good at things. On a more fundamental level, it is about our capacity  to have an effect our environments. It almost doesn’t matter what that effect is. Any time we make an effort to  interact  with,  to  organize, to  upgrade, or to  rearrange our  immediate surroundings  we  are  going  to  experience greater well-being. This is important, in particular, because many students see “fun” as their  primary goal and “work” as something to be avoided as much as possible. This view is understandable,  given that students are required to do schoolwork all day and homework in the evenings, usually in a  non-autonomy supportive way. However, this outlook ends up robbing many teens of opportunities to  increase  their  sense  of  well-being. To  get around  this, I  encourage teens to  consider  “taking action” 
rather  than  telling  them  to “do work.” This  language of  “taking  action” has far  fewer  negative  connotations associated with it than does “doing work.” And while some actions are going to be more  practical and productive than others, when it comes to well-being, just about any action will do. The goal  is not to get teens to do something in particular, but to help them experience for themselves how taking  action, even in simple ways, leads to more vitality and well-being.  
Finally,  supporting  the  development  of  competence in  others  can involve providing  some  form  of  guidance or coaching. This can be a great opportunity for connection if we possess the knowledge or skill the teen is hoping to acquire. However, even if we don’t, we can still support their learning process by  offering  them  encouragement.  Learning  any  new  skill  inevitably  involves challenges  and,  at  times,  frustration. When a child hits their wall and  feels like giving  up, empathizing with  them and  offering  encouragement can help them push through. 

Putting Theory into Practice

As we wrestle with  how  to  best  support  teens,  one  sure  bet is  to  focus  on  helping  them meet  their  psychological needs. By placing autonomy, relatedness, and competence at the forefront of our efforts as parents and educators we can help teens reach their full potential. 
At LifeWorks, we strive to do this every day. When students arrive, we make sure to connect with them  as individuals, not solely as students to be tutored. Sometimes, this is simply involves offering a warm  "Hello, how are you?" At other times, this involves a checking in about the student's day. Whatever form  it takes, establishing a connection is an essential first step to providing meaningful support. 
As students transition into work mode, we help them devise individualized plans for their sessions rather  than simply telling them what to do. We do not leave them to their own devices (literally). Rather, we  ask helpful, supportive questions such as: What do you need the most help with today? What would you  like to accomplish during your session? Which of your assignments do you think will take the most time?  By asking such questions we help facilitate the student's own decision making process, thereby nurturing  and supporting their sense of autonomy. 
Once a personal connection has been established and a plan is formulated in an autonomy-supportive  way, students are really ready to learn. By taking the time to attend to a student's needs, we create an  optimal learning environment, which makes teaching them new academic material much more effective.  This, in turn, leads to increased student competency. When all three fundamental needs are getting met students truly thrive!