A crucial detail for most all children is that eventually they grow older. But, sadly, not all grow up. If an individual is to have a hope of a happy life, a large amount of independence is necessary.
Independence, here, does not mean never needing other people, nor creating every value that one needs – physical, intellectual and emotional – without any input from others. Life alone on a desert island would be rough and dreary. But it does entail a large amount of independence in the traditional sense. It means thinking and choosing for oneself, without major influence or consideration of the views of other people.
Why is this important?
Life presents us with options, often challenging and sometimes unpleasant. When faced with such options, each one of us has a fundamental choice – to think for oneself and do what that tells us is best, or to be (relatively) mentally passive and just do what others do or think should be done.
But to nurture our own thinking ability, to exercise individual choice is to practice the basic skill that allows deciding what is best. You can not become an athlete by watching others run, you must get on the road and use your own legs.
Sometimes that process will go astray. Sometimes following the advice of wiser or more knowledgeable and experienced people – parents, in many cases – would have certainly produced the best result. But as the child matures, the process of individuation is important if the results are to be a healthy person, not just a passive robot fortunate enough to have good advisers.
Advice from others can be extremely helpful to any person at any age. But at a certain point in the process, the decision to do this rather than that is presented to everyone. And, just like the athlete who never trains, performance in that task is affected by whether the person has done any independent exercise, or just drifted along.
It's possible to make a misstep when you don't give enough weight to the views of others, especially those more experienced and thoughtful. But you have the ability to correct your mistakes much more easily if you've made a practice of thinking for yourself.
Parents find it tough to know when to let a maturing child make mistakes that they – with greater insight – could see will turn out badly. The desire to shelter them is understandable and the frustration from being ignored even more so. But the most important task facing any parent is to encourage the healthy development of their children.
Before we realize it, that individual will be faced with the necessity of making decisions that are much more important. The practice they get exercising their faculties is essential to meeting those challenges.
Nurturing Independence in Your Child and other great parenting articles, such as
Playmats, Indestructible Fun are available on
Tips on Parenting.
