How To Raise An Independent Child
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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.


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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.

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.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Hyperion.
©2002. All Rights Reserved. 

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POSITIVE pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child
by Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
 
book cover: POSITIVE pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child by Jim Taylor, Ph.D.Parents often wonder--"Are we pushing our children too much, or too little?" What do kids really need to be successful and happy people? For parents, how they answer this question will determine how they will raise their children, what lessons their children will learn, what values they will adopt, and, ultimately, what kinds of adults they will become.

Jim Taylor, an experienced doctor of psychology, gives parents clear and balanced instruction on how to encourage children just enough to produce a happy, successful, satisfied achiever. Pushed properly, Taylor believes, children will grow into adults ready to tackle life's many challenges. Using his three-pillared approach, Taylor focuses on self-esteem, ownership, and emotional mastery, and maintains that rather than being a means of control, pushing should be both a source of motivation and a catalyst for growth which can instill important values in children's lives. He teaches parents how to temper their own expectations to suit their children's emotional, intellectual, and physical development, and identifies common red flags that indicate when a child is being pushed too hard -- or not enough.

Info/Order this book (hardcover)  or in paperback.

About the Author

photo of Jim Taylor, Ph.D. PsychologyJim Taylor, Ph.D. Psychology, is an internationally recognized authority on the psychology of performance, sport, and parenting. His professional expertise encompasses performance and sport psychology, child development and parenting, and coaches education. Dr. Taylor has worked with professional, world-class, collegiate, and junior-elite athletes in tennis, skiing, cycling, triathlon, track and field, swimming, football, golf, baseball, and many other sports. He has also worked extensively outside of sports including in education, business, medicine, technology, and the performing arts. Dr. Taylor hosts three podcasts: Train Your Mind for Athletic SuccessRaising Young Athletes, and Crisis to Opportunity

He is the author of several books on achievement and conducts seminars on the subject throughout North America and Europe. Visit his website at www.drjimtaylor.com.