ABSTRACT

Children's psychological needs are at the heart of contemporary public concern, part of the everyday vocabulary of countless numbers of social welfare workers and teachers, policy-makers and parents. This chapter is a by-product of nearly two decades spent exploring the borderlands between child psychology, education and social welfare, especially relating to children under 5 years.To summarize the analysis, the chapter discusses apparent simplicity and directness of need statements in a highly condensed combination of both empirical and evaluative claims. They are often not fully specified, but depend on a consensus of knowledge and values between author and reader, horticultural adviser and gardener, social-worker and client, policymaker and community. Children's needs is a powerful rhetorical device for constructing images of childhood, prescribing for care and education, and judging the quality of adult-child relationships. Hence, the chapter explores to draw attention to the continuing role of psychology in the reconstruction of childhood in terms other than children's needs.