Setting the scene: good intentions but too much pampering

Mark and Maria doted on their son James. It had taken many years and several IVF cycles before Maria could conceive and because of a difficult pregnancy and Maria’s, James was their only child. He was precious, as all children are. During James’ infancy, Maria was constantly anxious that he would get sick or would hurt himself. Because she worried and fussed over him and wanted his world to be a happy one, Maria smoothed out as many bumps as she could. Nothing was too much trouble for her.

In the early school years, James had some difficulty separating from his mother, and had tantrums when he had to go to bed at night. As James progressed through primary school, Maria did as much as she could to help with his homework, got everything ready for him each day and organised after school activities for most afternoons. Mark thought Maria was over-involved with their son, and that James was growing up a bit of a wimp, but could see that James was the centre of Maria’s life and made her so happy that Mark said nothing.

So, where is the problem?

At school, James had difficulty with friends. He cried easily and other children found him annoying, as he always expected to get his own way. James’ grade 5 teacher found him disorganised and dreamy and believed he was not achieving his potential. When there were challenges in the curriculum, James did not know how to solve them and passively waited until the teacher noticed or came to help. James was unreliable in completing homework and bringing things to school, but his mother always had an excuse for him. James was a long way behind his class mates in his ability to manage every day life.

What is independence all about?

It is often said that parents should work themselves out of their job: that the ultimate goal for parents is to become redundant. While parents’ love and support will always be valuable throughout their children’s lives, it is vital that young people develop the capacity to manage life for themselves in a robust and resilient manner. This is what independence is all about. When children develop competence, their confidence grows. Knowing they have solved a problem, made good decisions and done it by themselves, gives children an inner resource that will be the foundation of their relationships, achievements and life satisfaction. There is evidence that a stronger a sense of personal responsibility in adolescents is related positively to self-esteem and the ability to manage emotional reactions – and surely this is what we would wish for all our children.

Ages and stages

Young children have a natural drive for independence. Most of us have heard the cry “I can do it myself” in relation to many self-care activities. It is a healthy attitude and not to be discouraged, despite the patience required at times. Another parenting maxim, “never do for a child what they can do for themselves”, underlines the importance of encouraging children’s independent skills, and there are numerous situations in which parents can foster a child’s personal competence and responsibility. Parents need to believe children are capable of taking on independent responsibilities as they grow up. Here are a few examples from across the age span:

• Getting dressed
• Putting away toys
• Packing bags for school
• Contributing to household chores
• Getting themselves up in the morning
• Speaking to teachers at school if there is a problem
• Ringing for a work experience place

Parent traps

Too many privileges

Children get many privileges and quite often these are given without an accompanying responsibility. For example, a 10 year old is given a mobile phone but has no capacity to pay for phone calls. A 13 year old is given a TV for his bedroom but does not have the self-discipline to manage it. Parents need to build in responsibilities for new privileges and not be pressured to provide these for their children before they really have the maturity to manage them.

Saving kids

If we repeatedly jump in to fix things for our kids, it is not surprising that they will not learn how to fix things for themselves. Nor will they learn to think ahead if parents save them on a regular basis. Allowing children to face the consequences of their actions is necessary to teach them to be accountable for their actions. Parents who give their teenagers a ready excuse for late homework or drive them to school every morning they sleep in, are actually giving a subtle message that their son or daughter cannot really manage their lives. Deep down, their self-belief suffers.

Expecting happy children all the time

Generations ago, the most common goal of parents was for their children to grow up and get a job. As economies strengthened, parents’ wishes became more focused on their children getting an education and a satisfying education. Perhaps getting married and having their own home was also part of the parents’ dream. The recent generation of parents have a simpler goal: for their children to be happy. But children cannot be happy all the time, and parents must accept that to grow into healthy young adults, kids will need to experience some ups and downs. It doesn’t mean that we deliberately place obstacles in their way, but see challenges as an opportunity to develop their capacity to put up with frustrations and build emotional maturity.

Worrying about bad things

We live in an anxious age when the media brings us every bad news story within minutes of its occurrence. It seems as though the world is a dangerous place for children with accidents or predators around every corner. Parents can respond to this anxiety by not giving children any space, hovering constantly to ensure they are safe. In short, being over-protective, “helicopter” parents. There is no evidence that the world is more dangerous for children now than in the past, but many parents behave as though it is, inadvertently sending a message to their kids that they are not really safe or able to handle the big, wide world.

Helping children to develop their independence by solving their own problems

From the above, we can see what parents should NOT do: not give them too much too soon, not repeatedly save kids, not expect them to be happy all the time and not be overly anxious. What is that parents CAN do?

Having a simple but clear approach to teaching children problem-solving is really helpful. Here are the key points to focus on:

1. What is the problem and what do you want to happen?
2. What are the possible alternative solutions?
3. What would be the best solution and what do you need to implement it?

This approach can be taught to very young children using simple language and will build a sense of control and independence when children follow through with actions to solve their problems. It helps strengthen their self-talk by overtly verbalising the problem-solving process and it also gives a message that problems have solutions that are within the reach of everyone.
Of course, sometimes kids do need help from adults when the problem is too big for them, they have tried their best or when there are specific difficulties operating against them (for example if they are being bullied).

The way forward for James

After a very confronting parent-teacher interview, Maria realised that she was doing far too much for James and that if she continued down this path, he would be very unpopular and unsuccessful at school. This is the last thing she wanted. After reading a few parenting books, Maria decided on a new tack: she explained to James that she realised he was growing up and that she had underestimated him. Maria started with the simple task of James packing his own school bag each night and gave him one regular household responsibility. With the teacher’s support, Maria no longer wrote notes excusing James from not completing his homework and she agreed that James would do it at lunchtime in order to learn to take responsibility for it. James would not like it, but Maria knew it was a start on his path to becoming more independent and managing life’s challenges both now and into the future.