How to Help Your Child Become More Independent
My mom loves to tell stories about how I made sandwiches myself when I was three years old. Three! I used to think it was a sad story, a commentary on her ability not to raise children, but now that I’m a mom myself, I see a positive point: she inadvertently made me a super-independent person.
I don’t want to repeat much of her parenting style, but I try to nurture resilience and independence in my own daughter, while making her feel protected and loved. Here’s what I learned:
Start from the beginning
It is true that a child depends on you for everything – food, sleep, comfort, love, survival, but pay attention from the very beginning about what they need before rushing in. Unbeknownst to Child Whisperer , author Tracy Hogg writes that parents should “Learn to hold back a little and read your little ones.” Once they know there is a problem, then they can calm them down. According to her, all moms and dads can help their babies “become independent little creatures.”
Respect your child
Sure, he’s a piece of goodies that eats, sleeps, cries and poops, but he’s also a sane person and you should treat him that way by telling him what’s going on instead of talking about him or about him in a third person. “People tend to speak over the heads of babies, sometimes acting when they are not even there,” writes Hogg.
Soon after the birth of our daughter, my husband tried to look her in the eyes and whispered in a chant, “Hello, this is your father speaking.” He did it so much and so seriously that his sister and I started joking that he was Darth Vader. Luke, this is your father speaking.
Hogg offers to surround even a newborn child with a circle of respect, refer to him by name, tell him what you are going to do, even ask permission before touching him.
Take a step back
My best friend’s dad told her that he loved her a million times a day. “You cannot spoil children by telling them you love them, but you can spoil them by doing for them what they can do themselves,” he said. A humble and patient man who showed insecurity when it came to his children, he knew how to back off and let them try things for themselves, from little things like tying shoes to more serious things like learning to drive. (I do n’t exist yet.)
Don’t interrupt their flow
According to psychologist Mihai Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “an ecstatic state of deep concentration that occurs when we are really and deeply engaged in a task.” In other words, it’s when you’re in the zone: reading a book, solving an equation, or even focusing on bringing Cheerios to your mouth if you’re nine months old. You will see children everywhere in the zone and adults interrupting them with meaningless questions: “Are you building Lego?” “Are you having fun?” Parents may be motivated by the desire to interact with their children or even improve their vocabulary. They may also just worry about being silent. But this makes it difficult for the child to focus and focus.
Rachel Dorley, founder of TinkerLab, adds that flow cannot occur if the task is too simple . “If a child (or an adult) is not asked to test their new skills, they get bored,” she writes. “You’ve witnessed this shift from flow if you’ve ever tried to set up a ‘favorite’ activity but found that your child is no longer interested in it.” Give kids access to a variety of open source materials and see what happens. To this there is an added bonus: as preschool educator Magda Gerber once wrote: “If a child has enough opportunity to play independently, without interruption, he is likely to be much more willing to obey the demands of his parents.”
Remember this is a process, not a result.
Of course, you want your child to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner – whatever! But we are often so focused on the moment that we don’t always remember the big picture. Food, like everything from learning to read to dressing and toilet training, is not just an instant. This is why I loved weaning with an infant – a method where you let the babies feed themselves so they can learn good eating habits. Of course, I could have fed her better myself – getting more food into her with less mess (try pulling the avocado off the wall!); read her books faster than she could look through them (she does it upside down); and carried her down the stairs, but what could she learn from all this?
Give him some time
God, it might take my kid an hour to get home, and her daycare is just a block away! But she likes to stop and pet the dogs, climb stairs and pick flowers. It’s like wandering with someone on LSD. But if you’re going to let the kids do things on their own, you need to set aside extra time in your schedule, be it time to get dressed in the morning, brush your teeth, or put cereal in (or next to) the bowl. … (I admit, sometimes I put clothes on my daughter and put her in a stroller because I don’t have time for this, but I try when I can).
Don’t be so careful
When I hear my daughter walk and say to herself, “Be careful,” I realize that I need to drop the warnings a little. Of course, I want her to be careful – I don’t want her to get hurt – but do I really want to insert this mantra into her psyche? Despite the fact that I twitch when she dangles from the metal bar above the slide before going downhill (why is it always twisty?), I would rather have her cocky and adventurous with occasional bruises than hanging from her back in fear.
Always be on the sidelines
Infants, toddlers, and children have different periods of affection, different personalities, and different abilities. While there are many times to step back, there are times to step in – lend a helping hand, comfort, or hug. The task of education is to find out when.