Thanks for being here. If you like the content, please drop a comment, subscribe to blog and share it with friends.
Introduction
Being independent is one of the fundamental rights of all living beings in this world. No one can stop others from being independent. Like any individual, even our children love to be independent, and they want to perform all the work by themselves. If we have a toddler or preschooler at our home, we can understand the child’s independent behavior as they want to do everything on their own.
At every stage of their life, children want to be independent in their way. Starting from picking up their clothes and drinking water /milk from their cup, children love to do everything independently. They love to explore their surroundings on their own and do things on their own from an early age.
As a parent/caregiver, we can provide the right environment for the child to explore and guide them positively. Being independent at an early age is more important to lead a happy and stress-free life.
How can we support a child to be independent?
Believe in the child without any pre-judgments and allow them to do minor work at home. Home and family are where life starts for any individual. Children can freely ask for choices and explore things inside their own house, so it is always good to allow them. Based on their age, we can provide an opportunity to explore and be independent in their routine life.
- Allow them to choose their clothes
- Let them try and put on their shoes/socks.
- Let them start with simple kitchen work such as pouring, closing the vessel lid, taking up their plates, putting them back in the sink, drinking water from their cups, and much more. Simple kitchen work provides independence in children.
- Let them arrange the pillows during the morning time and make up their bed during the night.
- Hang on the wet clothes, helps in folding and arrange their clothes.
- Opening and closing the door
- Allowing them to choose their food, self-feeding helps a lot to understand their own body.
- Putting on their car seat belts, selecting their games to play, and selecting books to read enhances the maturity level in children through independence.
Why we restrict independence in children
We are all well aware of the importance of independence in children and try our level best to do it. But sometimes or most of the time, we fail to do so due to various reasons. Do you want to know such situations and have a positive look at them, please scroll through?
1.Time constraint
It is hard to allow the child to try to be independent all the time. If you feel you are running out of time and children may demand to do it independently, please plan and go with the flow. It is hard, but we need to maintain the time, especially if we are going out. Be a toddler or a preschooler; they love to dress up themselves and often want to choose /change it. If you ever feel this activity will affect your timing schedule, please plan and start early. This happens most of the time at our home, and we are trying our level best to pre-plan. Still, we fail at times but get success most of the time. But it is fine to divert them once or twice to meet the timing but not all the time
2.Less Patience
This happens most of the time with many parents, as kids take a longer time to finish any work, and not every parent has the patience to wait until the child completes it. If you ever feel such a way, it is our responsibility to change ourselves, and we can provide a separate setup for the child to explore. After all, parenting starts within us, and if we want to raise an independent individual, we need to sough the seeds from young age onwards.
3.Cleaning up anxiety
Try to make up your mind as it will be like this only for the early years. Once they learn the cleaning up process, kids clean up on their own. We can involve the child in cleaning up after any independent work. As they are in the learning stage, the mess is widespread in the independent work, and we can try our level best to accept it and involve children in cleaning up as well. Cleaning up is a life skill, and it takes time to happen routinely, yet it a great independent work.
4.Children are not old enough to be independent
A widespread phrase among parents is that we always think children are not old enough to do chores and we need to provide all details, do all the work for them. Well, it’s true in some ways and not true in many. If they are not exposed at this age, they won’t attempt anything when they grow up. Provide positive boundaries and allow the child to explore.
Summary
Being independent is more important for any living being, especially for humans. We can’t expect someone all the time to be with us for basic needs. Independence starts at an early age, and we parents help the child to have positive boundaries and to have independence in their life.
Do you provide independence in a child’s life? Would you please share your feedback in the comment section
Read more
I am a certified parenting coach and you can WhatsApp me mail me at indumathi.l@gmail.com for 1:1 personal session.
Please CLICK HERE for various positive parenting tips.
Please CLICK HERE to know more on independence from fellow blogger
Please CLICK HERE for positive parenting tip from my youtube channel. Please subscribe if it is interesting