Help yourself! 8 tips for teaching kids to be more independent
It?s 7:55 a.m. and my six-year-old daughter is singing Pharrell?s ?Happy? in her pyjamas while bopping to the beat. I?m not happy, knowing that the school bell rings in 15 minutes. I pull her PJs off like they?re on fire and tug up her tights so brusquely that I practically lift her off the floor. We make it, barely.
I know she can dress herself, but my blood pressure starts to spike watching her stalling shenanigans, and I often end up doing it for her to avoid facing yet another late slip.
Sound familiar" Jeanne Williams, an Edmonton psychologist, sees many parents coping with the time crunch by using a ?parenting to get through the day? approach: They worry about what needs to be done in the here and now, not about the long-term effects of these daily choices. ?I?d go so far as to say that all parents do this at some point,? she says. Well, if we?re all doing it, it can?t be that bad. Right"
Unfortunately, this isn?t a strength-in-numbers thing. ?Habitually doing things for your child that she?s capable of doing herself sends an inadvertent message that you don?t have confidence in her abilities,? Williams warns. The outcome is a child who lacks independence, self-esteem and problem-solving skills and who can?t?or won?t?do age-appropriate tasks. This is sometimes called ?learned helplessness.? Learned from whom" You guessed it.
But Williams doesn?t want us to feel guilty. She knows we?re just trying to keep all those balls in the air and explains that thi...
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