Raising children to be independent is a really important and sensitive topic; this is why we need to address it. The need to do certain things or everything alone is part of the optimal development of each and every child. We collected some advice to help you to do this smoothly, gladly, consistently and safely. By adequately raising children to be independent boosts their self-confidence, they experience their competences, and this will have a positive effect on their life in the future.
The first step of raising an independent child is to offer them the opportunity to choose from two
things – by doing so the child’s decision-making competences and the responsibility will be
supported. When having a meal we can ask them to choose from two options (“Would you like to
have an apple or a banana?”) instead of “What would you like to eat?” But we shouldn’t give them too many options because this would make the decision harder and it is important to avoid pressure and the burden of bad decisions – there is no wrong answer, so there is no bad decision. If you see that your child decides slowly, just think about it: is this because they don’t have enough information concerning the topic or because they have fears. We shouldn’t project our fears to them, we know it could be difficult to give some independence for a child who was dependent on us not too long ago, though it is still important to trust them and support them. Sometimes it might be easier to do things ourselves instead of them but we should trust our kids and give them space to explore their skills and competences.
As you could read in our previous article about supporting our kids to play individually, the concept of being patient and knowing that this is a step-by-step process is really important here too. When kids have their own concepts and wishing to try new tasks, we should only help them as little as it is needed and let them develop.
First give them small tasks they like doing to boost their motivation. Let’s think of the smallest things like putting the toys back to their places, putting on certain clothes or setting the table for
themselves before eating.
Show them how to do the tasks properly but be happy about their own
solutions, too. In case of failure we shouldn’t let them feel disappointed, show them that they can try it again, maybe with some help. It is not a problem if they cannot solve a complex task alone, divide it into smaller parts and let our kids to achieve as many as they can or as they would like.
Give them enough time to do the tasks even if this changes our daily routine or if this slows down our simple and quick activities. When our kids are able to do something individually, we shouldn’t do that task instead of them in the future. Making the bed or putting the clothes into the laundry are activities that can fit easily into everybody’s daily routine. Of course it is important to handle these tasks flexible and if the kids are too tired or fussy, don’t insist on doing them, next time try it again.
In the Forest Tale Daycare we also support independency and we help the kids according to their
skills and competences in certain activities. For example kids put the packages of their snacks into the right dust-bins and they also put back the toys into their places.
By consciously raising our children to be independent we help them in their future life and our
dynamic family life will also get better since due to the rules and the new kinds of cooperation
conflicts and pressure will ease down and we can form a relationship that is based on being partners.
All in all it is worth to try, to go through the first hardships because we will get a competent,
responsible child who can think about solving his or her own problems.
This article is translated by Emese Murin.
Click here for the Hungarian version.