Maslow’s Hierarchy and Photography
As a mama I’m always trying to do what’s best for my littles – and struggling to figure out just what that best thing is. I’m a long-time booklover and at any given moment you can usually find a parenting book on my nightstand, beside my desk and even in my car to read during ballet class.
Just how do we figure out what’s best for our littles?
Maslow’s hierarchy has been the traditional go-to for determining growth and motivation; his premise loosely being that our greater needs cannot be met until our more basic needs are taken care of.
Our family is blessed to be able to take care of our littles’ basic needs. They have food in their bellies and a safe place to sleep at night.
Aside from those basic needs of food & shelter, love, belonging and esteem are also included in the deficiency needs. If any of the deficiency needs aren’t met children feel tense and anxious, even though there may not be any physical signs.
The need for love, belonging and esteem is especially strong during childhood, and can even override a little’s need for safety. Given the choice between an unsafe situation where they belong and a safe situation where they feel alone, children may choose the unsafe situation.
So what can you do with that? And just what, you might be asking, does that have to do with photography?
Maslow’s Hierarchy and Photography
Your children need to see themselves as a part of something greater than themselves to meet their love, belonging and esteem needs.
Family photography displayed on your walls is a powerful way you can do that. Photographs of you with your littles – smiling at them, hugging them, playing with them – can go a long way in reinforcing the fact that they are loved and accepted in your family.
It’s not the experience of a family photography session itself that matters, though I like to think that families have a fun time playing and laughing during our sessions. Photographs languishing on your harddrive or a DVD just don’t have the same effect.
What ingrains that sense of belongingness is seeing those photographs on the wall everyday as they come through the door from school, come down the stairs for breakfast or do a puzzle underneath them on a rainy day at home. It’s the daily, and even hourly, reinforcing of the fact that you, as a family, love each other and that they, as your child, completely belong.
It’s a powerful message that, in our home, we expose our littles to every single day.
Can I help you do that for your family? Check out the website to see if we’re the perfect fit for your family photographs.
If you’d like to hear more about the psychology behind displaying family photographs in your home, please join us at Capturing the Essence of Parenthood on May 24th at 7AM. Tickets and more information are available at www.capturingparenthood.eventbrite.ca.