Durrant – celebrating independence

Yes, when children begin to talk, we celebrate, when they begin to walk, we celebrate, when they do these things that signal their independence really, we celebrate and yet there are some aspects of their independence that we don’t celebrate, in fact we try to stamp out. And those are things like saying ‘no’, or deciding what they want to eat, or deciding what they want to wear. And those are actually, although they can be irritating for a parent who needs to get out the door, who’s concerned about the child’s nutrition, who wants the child to look perfect because they’re going to get their pictures taken today, the parent can feel frustrated because it’s not going their way. Those are also actually signs of independence that should be celebrated.    

And I think sometimes parents get irritated not because they’re thinking about the child, but because they’re thinking about what the implication is going to be for them. This is quite common, and as a parent myself, I can relate to this feeling that if your child isn’t behaving as all children you think should behave in a public place, you feel the pressure of the public eye instead of thinking about ‘what is this behaviour mean from the child’s point of view’; ‘what are they trying to communicate to me’ and ‘what does this signal in terms of their development.  

So when children, for example, first start to say ‘no’, parents might interpret that as defiance, say. They don’t, if they’re interpreting it as defiance or a threat to their authority, they’re not recognizing this very important developmental progress that this child is making in their ability to say ‘no, I can make my own decision’. And if we think ahead to our long term goals and what we really want our children to be able to do in terms of their competence when they’re older and we’re not around anymore to guide them, we want them to be able to stand up for themselves, we want them to be able to state their opinions, we want them to not do what everyone tells them to do, we want them to be able to voice. And that begins with the word ‘no’.  

 Now there are of course behaviours like running in to the street, or poking fingers into electrical outlets, or doing dangerous things that we can’t let children do but we need to guide them around those safety issues in a respectful way that doesn’t squelch their sense of competence, and their sense of independence, and their ability to feel that they can say what they think. We need to nurture that while keeping them safe. And of course one of the best ways to do that is to child proof our homes so that those kinds of episodes simply don’t occur. If the child has a safe environment then she can explore, and she can set her own agenda to a large extent. 

Certainly there are situations where parents have to get out the door on time. There are just practical, everyday kinds of incidents that arise many times in every family’s day and I think it’s the way that we respond to those that matters. Certainly, the parent has to get to work on time and they can’t just sit and wait all day so the child needs to also learn that there are certain expectations that have to be met, but that can be done in a way that respects the child’s developmental level; that respects the child as a person, as an individual, and still meets the parent’s needs. Hitting and yelling and punishments are not going to help the situation. They tend to make the child even more resistant. Just like adults, when barriers are put up all around us, we tend to want to break through them. So parents need to build their skills in eliciting children’s cooperation, not coercing them to comply. Those are two very different things; different processes.