Celebrating Independence

On the 4th of July, our thoughts naturally gravitate towards thoughts of independence -- usually that of our country and what it means for us as citizens. But I want to challenge you to think about independence in another way as well - that of our growing children and how it affects us as individuals.

As our children grow, we provide them with opportunities for expansion, greater understanding of the world, and greater responsibilities, preparing them gradually for adulthood. We help them learn to feed and dress themselves, teach them their colors and numbers and letters, send them off to school to forge their own learning experiences and new friendships. We enroll them in activities to help them learn what they enjoy and teach them social skills such as teamwork. We foster their financial skills through saving, purchasing choices and eventually balancing a checkbook. We teach them to drive. You get the picture. We spend the first two decades of their young lives preparing them for the world. Why? So they can function as independent adults.

Easy, right? Well, not always, because as we foster and support our childrens’ quests for freedom it disrupts our family constructs and forces us to change how we are as adults and parents. Consider the first time your child wants to serve his or her dinner and take it to the table -- a wonderful step and yet we worry about the use of adult serving utensils, or that the meal will end up on the floor and there will be tears and cleanup required at a point when we are tired and hungry. How tempting is it to step in and “help”? Do we want our kids to gain the ability to take dishes to and from the table? Of course and as quickly as possible! But in the moment, sometimes the most convenient or easiest course of action is to step in. At what cost to our child’s independence and our own? We might instead choose to stop in those moments, take a breath, and allow our child to take that step though it may mean he or she has an accident and create some inconvenience for ourselves, keeping in mind that this is also forward motion for us as well.

Another example might be when our child starts school. All of a sudden he has his own life -- new friends, new interests, new caregivers, new skills learned. Whether we want to admit it or not, he doesn’t need us in the same way anymore. Many of his needs for stimulation are being met outside the home. What do we do with this vacuum of time and responsibility? We must ensure that we fill it with something for ourselves and mirror that growth in our child. Is it possible to mourn the passing of the “baby” phase of our child’s life and yet embrace this time as a new phase of our own lives in which we can reclaim some self-care, learn new skills ourselves, develop new hobbies or resurrect interests that have been put on the back burner, use the time to reconnect with the special people in our lives, and more. By doing so we honor the growth our child is experiencing and honor our own need for independence and growth.

Regardless of the age or stage of your children, I encourage you to think about what steps your child is currently taking toward self-sufficiency, and ask yourself what you can do to support and encourage these exciting measures of independence - in yourself as well!

Happy Independence Day!