Sometimes independence can be a long time coming. It took our nation years of war to claim it. As for our children’s independence, well, that can sometimes feel like war, too. On this day that we celebrate our nation’s independence, let us take this opportunity to shed some light on how we can foster it in our children, too.
Fortunately the gaining of a child’s self-sufficiency need not be as contentious an event as the Revolutionary War. In fact, with a little patience, perspective, and opportunity-creation, you can actually enjoy nudging your little one into the world of “I can do it by myself”.
PATIENCE first…. Whether or not an independent spirit is intrinsic to your child, your ability and willingness to patiently guide him will make the difference in his confidence, and that confidence makes all the difference in his desire to be independent. If scolded each time his curiosity is explored, a child will train himself to stifle that innate human urge to learn by doing. In the midst of those stages where it seems like he only wants to destroy things and vandalize, resist the urge to tell him it’s wrong, and instead guide him to an acceptable outlet of expression. If your child is a “wall artist” and you catch him in the act of creating a masterpiece on your living room wall, use that opportunity to put together a “studio” that he can access all by himself. Set up a low art-drawer with some paper and crayons, and show him that he can get to those things himself. Each time you catch him in the act of wall-drawing, remind him that “we only draw on paper”. Then ask him to show you where the paper is. This simple set-up guides him towards independence as he figures out that not only is it acceptable and even great to make art (promotes creativity), but that there are appropriate and inappropriate mediums (teaches boundary respect), and he can exercise the freedom to act on those art urges all by himself, whenever he chooses (encourages independence!).
A little PERSPECTIVE….One example I use often to help give parents some perspective on fostering independence is that of cup-drinking. The art and science of cup-drinking is something we as adults totally take for granted. When you scale it down to a toddler’s eye-view, it’s a rather involved task. We’ve tipped cups to our lips hundreds of thousands of times in our many years, but consider how few times a toddler has had that experience. When she picks up a cup and tips it to her lips, she has to, in her own crude way, calculate how far to go, and she’ll likely spill it to find out how far that is or was. We parents clean up that spill and somehow think that she should know better next time and therefore shouldn’t spill it again. But what we often take for granted is that the next time she picks up a cup to drink, it may be only half full, while the first time it was completely full, and the third time, it may only be a quarter of the way full. Perhaps the forth and fifth times she’ll pick up a bigger, and then a smaller cup, and thus the weights are slightly different. Every single time she picks up a cup to drink, it will be a completely new experience, a new “calculation”, and likely a new spill, at least for some time. Eventually she’ll find a formula that allows her to predict a tipping point, and then independence cometh! Don’t be surprised by her urge to pour liquid from one cup, repeatedly, to another, or even to the floor or table. All of this pouring is part of discovering that formula. Call up your patience from the earlier paragraph, give her a proper receptacle like a big mixing bowl, fill that cup with water (as not to stain your furniture in case she gets off target of that bowl), and let her tip to her heart’s content.
Create and allow OPPORTUNITY….Speaking of filling up that cup to allow a child to explore the his/her tipping point, brings me to the next thing we as parents can do to promote independence. We need to create, or just sometimes allow, the opportunity to be independent. Filling that cup is an example of creating opportunity. Good for you if you have the heart to do it, your child will learn more quickly for it. But in the absence of such commitment, at least resolve to allow the natural opportunities for independence to run their course. This is often quite easy, but can sometimes be a challenge in that it can take a whole bunch of patience (see why I discussed that first?) Easy example: instead of picking up your child’s toys after playtime, encourage him to do it by himself. The challenge: waiting for your child to pick up all those toys, one by one, often stopping to play with them again, when it’s his bedtime and you’re in a hurry to get him to sleep. Often, the difficulty in this area comes from our impatience to slow down to our child’s pace or effectively motivate them to speed up. Then there are things that just can’t be sped up, such as a toddling toddler gaining the ability to climb stairs. This one takes the mastery of balance, depth perception, foot-eye-hand coordination, etc. How many times have you started to let your toddler maneuver down or up the stairs only to cut the experience short by picking him up because the whole thing was just taking too long? How will he learn to climb the stairs if his sweet little feet never touch them? Fight the urge to rush him or pick him up, find a nice melody to hum to kill the time while you wait for him to figure it out, or better yet, climb slowly along with him to give him a model to emulate, all the while praising his effort with lots of affirmations and “ata-boys!” And of course there are those moments when independence is hindered by the best of intentions and our natural instincts to protect our children from… well, everything. That play structure at the park doesn’t look so threatening until your precious little one is dangling from it. You go to help him despite the fact that he probably was going to do it fine by himself. To this I can only respond with the sage wisdom of the unforgettable fish Dory in Finding Nemo: “Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him,” and that includes independence.
So muster your patience, adjust your perspective, and start creating and allowing some opportunities. Soon you’ll be celebrating your child’s own Independence, Day after day!