Celebrating Our Children's Independence

7/2/19

Chelsea Malik

MS, LMFT

As we celebrate our nation’s independence, let us also nurture and encourage our children’s growing independence. Independence can, and should, begin to develop at an early age. Independence not only helps your child prepare for adulthood, it also helps them feel competent and confident. With the following tips, you can build your child’s independence and set them up to succeed, now and in the future:

Responsibility

Whether your child is five or fifteen, you can start to increase their responsibilities around the home, building their sense of independence. Younger children can start with bringing their dishes to the sink and teenagers can do their own laundry. Make a list of things your child could do on their own and allow them to have a say in what they try. Examples could include getting ready for bed on their own or helping to plan and cook dinner.

Decision Making

Improve your child’s ability to make decisions on their own. Start by giving them choices around minor decisions, like what to wear each day, and then build to bigger decisions over time. Encourage them to develop their own thoughts and opinions and to find ways to express those appropriately. For example, ask your child, “What do you think?” more often.

Problem Solving

Try not to jump in and intervene too quickly during difficult situations. Help guide children to think about how they can manage situations independently. If children cannot think through situations without your help, they will come to depend too much on you to fix their problems. Instead, ask your child, “What are our options” or “Okay, so now what?” when they are faced with a challenge. For example, if there is a problem with a peer in school, help coach them on how they can talk it out with that peer instead of calling their parents right away. You can start with fictional problems, like in books or movies, and then gradually discuss problems that are more personal.

Interests

Encourage your child’s own unique interests and creativity. Help them to find a hobby they can engage in after school. Start with the activities they enjoy and then find ways to incorporate those into their everyday life. Building their sense of self as a whole is an important piece of helping to promote independence. This also includes encouraging your child to be true to who they are as a person. For example, allow them to have a say in what their bedroom looks like or encourage their unique sense of style.

Social Relationships

Encourage your child to expand and build their relationships with peers. Part of independence is finding relationships outside of the family and spending more time without parents. This is not to discourage family time, but make sure your child has strong relationships outside of the family as well. Start with facilitating play dates for younger children and as they grow, encourage sleepovers and time dedicated to hanging out with friends.

Caring for Others

Independence is also fostered through helping others. If your child has younger siblings, enlist their help in taking care of their brother or sister. For example, put them in charge of reading with their younger sibling or helping them with a specific task. Babysitting and caring for pets are additional great ways to teach responsibility.

Building independence does not mean giving your child complete and total freedom. As a parent, it is still important to help teach them right from wrong and support them as they grow, which will help them become successful. Start to think about what skills your child will need to become an independent adult and how you can teach, encourage, and practice the skills. Children are never too young to begin developing their independence, and never too old to develop a new set of skills.