A Macaroni Kid Reader Asks:
I’ve noticed in past columns that you tend to emphasize getting kids to cooperate with their parents. My husband is afraid this will turn our kids into robots. He wants our kids to think for themselves and not just do what we tell them to do.
Noël Janis-Norton
This brings up such a great point. As important as cooperation is, it is not what most of us consider to be our ultimate goal for our children. But lack of cooperation is what causes parents the most frustration and stress, so it’s the first thing parents always tell me that they want to improve.
What is it that we want for our children as they head out into the larger world? What skills do we want them to have so that they can lead productive lives and have rewarding relationships?
The answers we hear the most are confidence and self-reliance, and there’s a great reason why. Children who are confident and self-reliant enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing things for themselves. They become more flexible so they have an easier time adjusting to new and different environments and handling any adversity they encounter. When they eventually leave home and go out into the world, they will have the necessary life skills to successfully manage the transition into adulthood.
So how do we help our kids develop self-reliance and confidence? You can start by having your kids (even very young ones) do all the things for themselves that they are capable of doing. Self-reliance is actually the stepping-stone to confidence. The more your children do things for themselves, the more confident they will become.
Of course, we all know that it’s quicker and easier to make the bed ourselves, or to tie our child’s shoes or to load the dishwasher ourselves than it is to teach and supervise our child as she learns, bit by bit, day by day, to do it properly. But it’s so important to persevere! Teaching and training are investments that pay dividends much sooner than you can imagine. When we continue to do things for our children that they could do for themselves, we are unintentionally robbing them of opportunities to become more self-reliant and confident.
So I recommend that whenever you’re doing something for your child, always be thinking, ‘What bit of this can he learn to do for himself?’ and start teaching him how. You’ll feel good about giving him one more life skill!
You may be thinking, ‘But I can’t even get my child to sit at the table, let alone clear his plate!' This is why we must first put our efforts into helping our children develop the habit of cooperating. And we need to do this not just for our sanity but because cooperation is actually the gateway habit into self-reliance and confidence. Until our kids are cooperative, they often aren’t willing to do things for themselves (self-reliance) or willing to try new things (confidence).
So it is essential to learn how to help your children become more cooperative. Strategies we teach such as Descriptive Praise will motivate your children to want to do what you ask and think-throughs will help them to do these things without reminders. When you use these two core strategies of Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting, you can transform resistant kids into cooperative kids in a short space of time.
When your child is listening and cooperating, he is doing what you ask him to do. But when your child is self-reliant, he no longer needs you (or his teacher!) to tell him what to do and how to do it. A self-reliant child has reached the stage where he tells himself the right thing to do and then he remembers to do it.
As your kids become more self-reliant and more confident, life at home will be much more pleasant. You will find yourself doing less and less for them, and you will have the satisfaction and confidence that comes from knowing that your kids are actively learning the skills, habits and values that are important to you!
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