Part 1 Part 2 and some follow-up odds and ends
Teaching kids to get around in the world is like teaching them anything else. First you do it for them, then you do it with them, and finally they do it themselves.
As with any complex skill, there's some back and forth. There are kids who vault out of diapers and never look back, but I think they're the exception and not the rule. There will be days when your walking child hops back in the stroller, and days when you ferry your 16-year-old licensed driver across town for one reason or another. But I think the key is to keep focusing on the progression. When kids new to underwear have accidents, we don't say, "That was a terrible idea. I guess we're never doing that again." We say, "Hm, let's troubleshoot." If a mother said of her typically developing 8-year-old, "I know some people would say he should be using the toilet by now, but HE MIGHT POOP IN THE FLOOR so I'm keeping him in diapers" -- we would worry about such a mother.
I submit that we are holding kids back in an equally weird and developmentally inappropriate way with our current safety fixation. Dear parents of America, your kids are more competent than you think they are.
This post has been kicking around in my head for a while now because what I am telling you seems too obvious. I have been waiting for the magical secret to occur to me, but there is no magical secret. There is only common sense coupled with patience.
Here's what I mean. I told you about how Petely was worried about walking to speech therapy last fall. There's one intersection between my house and my office that takes some practice to navigate. The traffic moves slowly there, so it's not as if we're playing Frogger when we cross it. But in the late afternoon it's clogged with cars eager for their turn going through the four-way stop, and college students are not always quick to yield the right of way to pedestrians. For the first few weeks I met him on the street south of the intersection and we walked through it together, talking about when it was safe and when it was unsafe. For the next few trips I met him just north of the intersection. He had to figure out the crossing, but I was there to wave encouragingly. He tried out some new crossing strategies that wouldn't have occurred to me ("I saw a college student coming; I waited a few seconds and crossed with her so I wouldn't be nervous"). After that he made the trip solo.
It would have been easy to say he wasn't old enough or brave enough yet. Remember, though, that "brave enough" is a moving target. Remember, too, that kids will ask you for independence from a very early age. Whenever you can reasonably do so, say yes. When you can't, affirm the impulse. This morning I was trying to figure out how to get Stella to the library and she said, "I can just walk by myself." I said, "I need more hands to give you all the thumbs up that I would like to give you." Two of her brothers heard the exchange and came to the dining room, giving her two thumbs up apiece. My husband also joined in the thumbs-up party. She had company for her library walk today, but she also knew that we were proud of her independent inclinations.
Tonight at dinner I asked the kids about it: what made you start asking to do things by yourself? What helped you to know you could handle it? They mentioned old-fashioned kids books, as I thought they might (oh! Mad Scientists' Club! love it! forgot about it! go buy it!), and they also mentioned family culture. When walking by yourself is both normal and a rite of passage, smaller siblings want to join in. This brings to mind a useful rule of thumb for raising independent kids: Pretend It's Still 1956.
In 1956, of course, it was totally normal for kids to walk to school, even if they had to -- the horror! -- cross the street in order to get there. I think this is partially because families were bigger in 1956. When you have lots of kids, they take more responsibility for each other, which helps to teach them that they can handle responsibility. They look out for each other (to a certain extent), so there's less need for constant adult supervision. Maybe a big family isn't in the cards for you, but can you hang around with big families? Can you form a pact with like-minded parents to let your kids explore together? It's true that kids often do better when someone is looking out for them. It's not true that the someone has to be an adult. Kids live up or down to our expectations of them. So remind me here -- what are the merits of low expectations, exactly?
In 1956 there were no cell phones. Megan McArdle has written about the role of cell phones in reporting non-negligent parents as negligent, and I think she's spot on. I think phones contribute to this problem in a more subtle way as well: they facilitate the instant appeal to external authority. Lost? Stuck? In trouble? Don't whip out your phone -- think about another solution instead. Lots of ink has been spilled lamenting the plugged-in-ness of today's parents, but it's not just about mental presence at a boring soccer game. When Google is the adults' go-to response to a question or a problem, what are we teaching the kids about how to figure out situations that leave them flustered? I have no data and I acknowledge my anti-smartphone bias, but I suspect that setting the example of autonomous problem-solving can help kids to be autonomous problem-solvers. This skill is not only a prerequisite for a solo walk to the ice cream shop; in the long run, it's much more important than the ability to buy your own ice cream.
So, huh, I may have talked myself out of my burned out go-with-the-flow (or go-with-the-flow-ish) state. Kids can handle a measure of independence. They need a measure of independence. Bring the Sane Mom Revolution already!
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