Raising An Independent Child
by Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
Independence is not something that your child can gain on her own.
She has neither the perspective nor the experience to develop
independence separately from you. Rather, it is a gift you give your
child that she will cherish and benefit from her entire life.
You can
provide your child with several essential ingredients for gaining
independence. You must give your child love and respect. These
expressions give her the sense of security that allows her to explore
and take risks. You must show confidence in your child's capabilities.
She is then likely to internalize this faith you have in her and
develop an enduring sense of competence for herself.
You must teach her
that she has control over her life. You need to provide her with
guidance and then the freedom to make her own choices and decisions.
Finally, you must show her what her responsibilities are, that she must
accept these responsibilities, and then you must hold her accountable
for her achievement efforts.
BE THE PARENT
One thing you absolutely must do is be the parent!
It's your job and it's your relationship with your child. If you assume
your role as the parent, your child can more easily assume his role as
the child. Being your child's friend — which isn't your job — can create
additional dependence because he has the added responsibilities of
having an "equal" relationship with you. Knowing that you are the
parent and he is the child establishes clear boundaries, roles, and
responsibilities that enable him to pursue his job — which is to
progressively gain independence from you.
Your role as a parent involves, initially, providing structure for
your child's life in the form of boundaries, expectations, and
consequences. Then, as your child grows, the role changes to one of
increasingly placing the onus for her life on her shoulders. This
transition involves a shift from micromanaging (yes, you must
micromanage your child's life until she has the experiences and skills
to micromanage her own life) to managing to simply giving feedback to
your child about her life. This evolution means giving your child more
options and decisions, fewer boundaries, expectations, and
consequences, and more freedom to determine the course of her life.
TEACH RESPONSIBILITY
One
of your tasks as the parent is to teach your child about
responsibility. The best way to ensure that you and your child assume
the appropriate responsibilities is for each of you to know what your
responsibilities are. If you and your child have a clear understanding
of what is expected of each of you, then it will be easier to stay
within the confines of those responsibilities. When your child begins
an achievement activity, you should sit down with him or her and
outline each of your responsibilities within age-appropriate boundaries.
Make a list of what you as a parent will be doing to help your child
succeed. Be sure to solicit feedback from her about what she believes
you can do to help her. Encourage your child to tell you if she thinks
a particular responsibility should not be yours. When this occurs, be sure she offers adequate justification and shows you how she will assume that responsibility.
Then, make a list of what your child's responsibilities should be in
her own efforts in the achievement activity. Before you share your
thoughts with her, have her describe what she will need to do to
succeed. If you feel your child has missed some important
responsibilities, suggest them to her and see if she agrees.
Next, identify other individuals who will have responsibilities in
your child's achievement activity, such as a teacher, instructor, or
coach. List what responsibilities they should have (if possible, these
people should take part in this process).
There should also be consequences for not fulfilling
responsibilities. Ideally, there should be consequences for both your
child and you, but it is probably unrealistic for your child to
"punish" you in some way (though there are certainly some parents who
could use a "time-out" every, once in a while). The best consequences
are those that remove something of importance to your child and give
her the power to get it back by acting appropriately.
This process provides absolute clarity to both you and your child
about what your "jobs" are. It also allows for no confusion at a later
point when either of you steps over the line and assumes the other's
responsibilities or neglects his or her own.
DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY
Many parts of our culture send a message to children that nothing is their fault.
Whether rationalizing criminal behavior as owing to a difficult
upbringing, looking for scapegoats on which to blame misfortune, or
faulting others for their failures, children are constantly told that
they do not need to be responsible for their actions. Yet, the ability
of children to hold themselves accountable for their actions is a
critical part of becoming a successful achiever.
The reluctance of children to take responsibility for their actions
is based on their desire to protect themselves from failure. By
avoiding accountability, children protect their egos from having to
accept that they failed because of something about themselves. By
blaming outside factors, such as other people, bad luck, or unfairness,
children can safeguard their egos from harm.
Some children may inconsistently take responsibility for their
actions. I call this "selective accountability," which means that
children are more likely to take responsibility when they succeed than
when they fail. Avoiding or accepting responsibility has a trade-off:
self-protection vs. self-enhancement. It's easy to take responsibility
for success, but the difficulty is also being accountable for failure.
But children must realize that they cannot have one without the other.
They cannot truly have ownership of their successes without also
accepting ownership of their failures.
Parents sometimes sabotage the opportunity for their children to
learn accountability in the way they comfort their child after a
failure. In attempting to relieve the disappointment that inevitably
accompanies poor achievement, you might find yourself trying to placate
your child by pointing out external reasons for her poor grade or goof
in recital. Though this might provide her with some temporary emotional
relief, it prevents her from taking responsibility for her efforts. It
also removes your child's ability to learn why she failed and to change
her actions in the future. Says Alison Armstrong, a coauthor of The Child and the Machine,
"Yet parents often feel they should try to spare their children
disappointment. In the mistaken belief that the perfect childhood is
obstacle-free, some parents unknowingly sabotage their child's progress
toward growth and independence."
You can facilitate your child's accountability for her successes and
failures by actively pointing out the connection between her actions
and their outcomes. The worthwhile way to soothe your child's negative
emotions is to show her how to produce a different, more positive
outcome in the future. With this approach, your child has both the
perception that she can effect a better result at the next opportunity
and she possesses the specific means to do so. For example: A girl is
disappointed and sad because she played poorly in an important tennis
tournament and was beaten by several competitors. Instead of making
excuses for her play, her father listens to her, empathizes with her
feelings, and gently points out that she did not practice very hard the
previous two weeks and passed up several opportunities to play some
competitive practice matches. He also indicates that if she put in
sufficient time and effort before the next tournament, she would play
better and possibly beat the same opponents the next time. Thus, the
girl's feelings of disappointment are acknowledged, she is held
accountable for her achievement efforts, and she is given the means to
change her performance in the future. More important, when she does
succeed she will be completely entitled to own her triumph.
ENCOURAGE EXPLORATION
Early
in your child's life, you need to keep him on a fairly short "leash" to
ensure his safety. You always keep an eye on him when he is playing and
you never allow him to wander too far away from you. This care builds
your child's sense of security by teaching him that he has a safe place
to which to return if he ventures too far and that you are there to
protect him when needed.
There is, however, a fine line between a sense of security and a
sense of dependence. When your child has established his sense of
security, you must then encourage him to explore the world beyond the
safety net that you provide. This "push out of the nest" allows your
child to take the first steps of independence from you by enabling him
to test his own capabilities in the "real world" and to find a sense of
security within himself. With more experiences through exploration
beyond your immediate grasp, your child will gain confidence in his
internalized sense of security, which will further encourage him to
explore more on his own, well beyond your safety net.
You can foster this exploration by actively encouraging your child
to explore the unknown within age-appropriate limits. For example, you
can ask your two-year-old to get a ball that you placed around the side
of your house. You can have your seven-year-old ride her bike to her
friend's house two blocks away. Or you can allow your fourteen year-old
to go on a camping trip in the mountains with several of her friends
(assuming she has some camping experience). Encouraging these types of
exploratory opportunities may make you uncomfortable, but they are
essential experiences for your child's evolution to independence.
You can also identify situations that cause your child some fear and
encourage him to face his fear and explore the situation. You can do
this by talking to your child about the fear, providing another
perspective that reduces the fear, and offering him some skills that
might neutralize his fear. If needed, you can also accompany your child
the first time he faces the situation and give him guidance on how to
master the fear, then allow him to face the situation on his own in the
future.
One way that parents inadvertently inhibit their child's sense of
security and cause dependence is by expressing fear, anger, or hurt
when their child begins to explore her environment. If you act angry or
overly fearful when your child explores a little too far, it might be
that your overreaction is due to your own fears about exploration and
risk. If you overreact to your child's exploratory experiences, she may
internalize this response and develop a belief that the world is a
dangerous place that should not be explored.
Learning to recognize your
own fears and to keep them in check so you don't pass them on to your
child is vital to the development of an independent child. If you think
this might be you but aren't sure, get a second opinion from a
professional or a trusted friend. (I add this only because people who
are hyperfearful are often the last ones to know it.)
You can also communicate positive messages about exploration.
Whether visiting a museum, allowing your child to go to the park alone,
or watching a scary movie, you can convey to your child that
exploration is a fun and exciting experience that should be sought out
and relished. If you express positive emotions about exploration with
your child, he is more likely to adopt those same beliefs and emotions
that will encourage him to further explore his world and his limits.
A final thought about encouraging exploration in your child: The
reality is that the world has, in many ways, become an increasingly
dangerous place to raise children. My recommendations for promoting
exploration in your child are not intended to expose your child to
undue risk. Rather, they are offered to help you understand what
beliefs and emotions you have about exploration that may interfere with
this process. I also offer recommendations to assist you in exposing
your child to exploratory experiences that are essential for the
development of independent children. As with all of my suggestions, you
must use your best judgment to decide which explorations are too
dangerous and which are in your child's best interests.
RESPOND TO EARLY WARNING SIGNS
The
emergence of contingent children does not occur overnight. Rather,
these problems develop over years of the children's exposure to
unhealthy perspectives, attitudes, emotions, and behavior. Seeing early
warning signs of one type of contingent child in your child should be a
wake-up call that you need to make changes in how you are influencing
your child. Persistent signs of perfectionism, harsh self-criticism,
loss of motivation and enjoyment, performance anxiety, inappropriate
emotions, and other behaviors should all tell you that something is wrong and that your
child might be heading down a unhealthy road. The earlier you can
recognize these potential problems, the better chance you have to make
changes and redirect the course that your child's life is taking.
You first need to examine your beliefs, emotions, and behavior with
your child. What kind of love do you express to your child? What
messages have you communicated to your child about success and failure?
How invested are you in your child's achievement efforts? What are your
expectations for your child? What emotions do you commonly show your
child when she succeeds or fails? What attitudes are you modeling for
your child? If early signs of a contingent child are becoming evident,
you will need to examine your parenting approach. Just as you often ask
your child to change, you must also change for the good of your child.
This soul searching can be a difficult process. It demands that you
take a close look at who you are, what you believe, and what you are
communicating to your child. You may find it helpful to seek out the
assistance of your spouse, a close friend, or a psychotherapist.
Once you identify how your beliefs, emotions, and behavior may be contributing to the development of a contingent child, you need to take action that communicates messages that will encourage your child to take a different road. Healthier messages may
include giving value love,
establishing clear boundaries, emphasizing effort rather than results, giving your child more responsibility in
his achievement activities, responding
differently emotionally to your child's successes and failures, or any of the many other recommendations made
earlier. Most important, you must
make these changes as soon as possible and communicate these new messages in a
clear and consistent manner so that your child "gets it" and can
respond to them in a way that will foster success and happiness.
Maybe this story will help. Eleven-year-old
Chrissy was a spoiled child. Her
parents hadn't received enough from their parents and compensated by heaping their love on Chrissy.
Chrissy's parents set no boundaries
for her and, though they didn't have much money, gave Chrissy everything they could afford regardless of
what she did.
Her parents didn't realize their outpouring of
love and unlimited freedom made
Chrissy a scared little girl. Because her parents let her make all the decisions and allowed her to do
whatever she wanted, Chrissy felt
that her parents couldn't protect her. Chrissy expressed this fear as anger toward her parents and disruptiveness
and low achievement at school.
Chrissy was a disrespectful, lazy, and angry child who was on her way to becoming a Disappointer. Her
parents saw Chrissy's difficulties,
but were at a loss to understand why she misbehaved or how to help her.
The counselor at Chrissy's school saw her problems
increasing, so she scheduled a
meeting with her parents, who were desperate for help. After a lengthy
discussion about Chrissy's behavior and home life, the counselor made the following suggestions:
Chrissy's parents needed to set clear
expectations about her behavior toward them, responsibilities around the house, schoolwork, and her time away
from the house. They also needed to
establish and administer consequences for when she did lot live up to expectations.
Chrissy's
parents sat down with her that evening and laid down "the new law of the
land." They expressed their concerns about her, described their new expectations and consequences,
and emphasized their love for her. As
expected, after having free rein over her life for so long, Chrissy resisted mightily, challenging her
parents every time they invoked the
expectations and enforced a consequence for the new "laws." During the first month, her parents had doubts
about whether their new approach was
going to work. But they were committed to staying with the plan and, with their mutual support and
continued guidance from the school
counselor, they remained steadfast through Chrissy's temper tantrums and resistance.
Then something amazing started to happen.
Chrissy's resistance to the new
expectations began to diminish and she started to respond to the demands her parents placed on her. Chrissy
became more respectful to her
parents, assumed her household responsibilities -- first with some prompting, then on her own -- and began to apply
herself in school.
When all
these changes were occurring, Chrissy was confused. A part of her hated having limits placed on her after so many years of freedom, but another part of her begrudgingly
liked her parents' being tough on
her. Chrissy believed her parents were finally showing that they really loved her and that she could count on
them to protect her from harm. Thanks
to the courage and resoluteness of her parents, Chrissy was going to be okay.
LIFE LESSONS
FOR OWNERSHIP
1. There is no free lunch. Don't feel entitled to
anything you don't sweat and struggle
for.
2. Set goals and work quietly and systematically
toward them.
3. Assign yourself.
4. Don't be afraid of taking risks or of being
criticized.
5. Never give up.
6. Be confident that you can make a difference.
7. Be a can-do, will-try person.
8. You are in charge of your own attitude.
9. Be reliable. Be fairful. Finish what you start.
This article was excerpted from:
 POSITIVE pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child
by Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Hyperion. ©2002. www.Hyperionbooks.com
Info/Order this book (hardcover) or in paperback.
About the Author
JIM TAYLOR, PH.D., has consulted with young achievers and
their parents in sports, education, and the performing arts for over 17
years. He is the author of several books on achievement and conducts
seminars on the subject throughout North America and Europe. Visti his website at www.drjimtaylor.com.
Another article by this author.
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