By Greg Moffatt
Special to The Citizen

My two younger children spent two weeks in summer camp and just before we said goodbye the day we dropped them off, my daughter said, “Look for me on the web page when they post the group photo. I’ll write and tell you where I am so you can find me in the group.” I thought it was interesting that a 14-year-old teenager would care that we saw her in a group photo of two hundred other campers. But when I stopped to think about it, she isn’t any different from the rest of us. We all like to be seen. Being seen means we exist - that we matter. Why else would we feel so good if our picture was in the newspaper or on television? Many people are seeing us so we must have some value.

We can see this need exhibited in the behavior of children as early as toddlerhood. When they first begin to move on their own, they will never go very far without looking back toward their parents. They will crawl or toddle off a few feet and then look back. As their mobility increases and they get older, they will walk further away while playing, but regularly come back to touch base with the parent.

As children get older, they not only look back to see if the parent is watching, but they will ask for it. “Watch me!” they exclaim as they swing on a swing set or ride their tricycles.
Grade school aged children continue to do this same thing. Over and over they will want parents to watch them do some skill. I’ve watched my children repeatedly do some task like jumping rope, riding a bike over a bump or something simple like that. After doing it, they say, “Let me do it again. I can do it better.” I remember my oldest daughter liked for me to sit and watch her color. It was her way of asking, “Am I good enough for you?”

Parents sit through endless soccer games, basketball games and awards programs just for those fleeting moments when their own child is front and center. I thought about this very thing after sitting through my own daughter’s high school graduation. I saw her from 100 yards away for less than one second while she received her diploma, but I was there. It mattered to her that I saw her.

This need isn’t fully satisfied in childhood. Even adults want to be seen. When we see a group photograph, our eyes are drawn first to our own face in the picture. Our first critical gaze forces us to ask ourselves if we look good enough. It is as if we look at the picture and hope that we are “seen” in some positive light - just like children. People with weak egos are regularly critical of themselves when they are “seen.” “My hair looks so bad,” or “I’m looking so old” are not unusual words to hear. These people criticize themselves for fear someone else might do it first, or that someone else might be thinking such things.

People are social and we all want to belong. We have an innate need to be seen as valuable and worthy to those people that we associate with. The weaker our ego, the more we generalize and feel a need to be seen as worthy by everyone. The stronger our ego, the more discriminating we are about whom we want to see us as valuable and worthy. But regardless of weak or strong ego, we all have this need.

It is for these reasons that I often use the words, “I see you” when I’m working with children of almost any age. I know they want me to see them, to see what they can do, and to see the value in their existence. Try this with your own children and see the reaction you get. I promise you they will appreciate it when you see them and at the same time you will help them build a stronger sense of self.

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