It’s important to start at the right time to help your child become independent.
Every parent who loves their child, sooner or later faces the same problem – how to raise children so that from childhood they have a head on their shoulders and learn to make their own decisions?
Not property, but personality.
This parenting begins with parents working on themselves. The main thing that you should understand at this point for yourself: children – this is not your property, which you raise only in order to take care of you in your old age. The child – it is a person, which you like no one else, knowing all its characteristics, should help to become established. He will not grow up by himself – especially if you treat a growing person like some mothers, in an animal fear for children, trying to protect them from possible trouble, following their children on their heels, monitoring and evaluating their every action, warning all desires, cutting off the contacts that seem wrong to them… They simply take over their children’s lives. All of this cuts off the development of the child’s independence at the root, turning him into a neurotic, who can’t study without his mother and has big problems in communicating with his peers.
No less harm than hyper-peddling can come from the belief that the child will grow up on his or her own. Such parents are ready as soon as possible to believe in the “adulthood” of their child and give him or her much more independence than the child can handle. By not meeting parental expectations, of course, and getting a kick out of it, the child becomes accustomed to being helpless from an early age, and encountering such attitudes regularly, gradually becoming disappointed in their ability to take independent action in principle.
The law is harsh, but it is the law
The urge to do everything by yourself is an organic sign of maturation, a sign of an awakening human psyche.
Basic independence skills are built around the age of three. And the first skill you should pay attention to the formation of – independence in eating.
Somewhere at the beginning of the second year of life, many children do not want to just sit at the table and open their mouths. What’s that in mom’s hands? – And little hands reach for a spoon. Let it be this time in your mouth did not get anything – enjoy the impulse! And once you – calmly, unobtrusively, not irritated by falling on the table porridge – show him how to hold a spoon correctly, and he will eventually begin to succeed in bringing it to his mouth full – so the man himself becomes interested, and his appetite will appear.
Miss the point here, make it easy on yourself – and the child will quickly become accustomed to being constantly fed by adults.
Basically, fostering independence is accustoming the child to the idea that there are certain rules for him, as well as for everyone in the house, and he must comply with these rules. Parents at first provided a hundred percent of life baby, should gradually, step by step, begin to dose their assistance to the child.
It is clear that at two and a half years, your daughter can not take off over the head turtleneck or pull tights tight. But velcro on sneakers (while wearing on the “right” feet!) is quite capable – as well as wrap a scarf around her neck. So do not do it for her, pretend that you are already dressed and go out, and she, what, is still in one shoe? I assure you it will work, and soon everyone will always be ready on time. Then let her put on her own jeans, learn how to zipper up a jacket and so on.
An important part of the education of independence of the child becomes his responsibility for the most valuable to him – toys. Let the three-year old understand that the order of the toys – it’s his contribution to the overall order in the house, and let’s say, before the arrival of guests, he once again check whether he has everything in its place.
A small child – an active creature, he is at this age constantly aimed at action, creation, helping adults, from him every now and then you hear: “I myself! Such an urge for independence is a characteristic of age, and then it goes away. Excessive parental caution, fear that the baby will spoil something, and most often just your impatience, the eternal rush prevent a child to prove himself. Of course, it’s faster to wipe up the tea accidentally spilled on the table than to wait until he reaches the cloth and independently remove the mess. But do pull yourself together and do not do for your child what he can do by himself!