Learning to let go and trust as a parent is not always easy. We have been entrusted with the safety, development and education of our precious little ones. The enormous weight of that can lay heavily upon us. But I want to reassure you that trusting your children will build confidence in everyone in the family. The benefits and blessings will overwhelm you!
Most children have a sense of their own limitations. Okay so not all children or developmental
stages have this down yet. It may not be apparent when your toddler is climbing
chairs to get onto the table, but perhaps that child has good coordination and
balance. Take the same child to a park
and let him/her go. You will be
impressed and maybe a little scared at first.
At some point you’ll notice that they might hesitate and not feel so
comfortable, say with the pole or monkey bars.
As a parent you are there for overall safety, but do not need to hover
or limit children from physical activity based on age. The opposite is also true for a more hesitant
child. When I first started my daycare
there was a little girl who clung to me while crossing the wide balance beam we
had made. I was there to support her as she felt she needed it. Now a few years later she will try to climb half
way up a fallen tree before wanting my hand for extra stability. Just try it out, stand back a bit and let
your child go. They will feel so proud of themselves. This is truly building self-confidence
without false praise.
I also want you to only do what you feel comfortable with. You know your own limitations. For myself I tend to stop my boys when I know
I can’t safely reach them or guide them down.
They love to climb trees, but at the moment they can only go so high
before I don’t feel it is safe. And that
is okay. We are a family exploring and
learning together. Something that has
helped us when out in nature (even at home) is to teach the kids about risk
assessment. It doesn’t need to be too
formal, but if my boys wanted to climb something I may simply say: “That sure
looks like a lot of fun, what should we keep in mind to be sure you’ll be safe
while climbing?” We may look for broken
branches or dangers on the ground. The
more often we talk about things together the more comfortable I feel as a
parent letting go. See now every one is
feeling more confident and bonds between parent/child are strengthened.
Children learn when they are interested in something. Our
babies learn to roll, crawl walk and talk without specific instruction or lessons. Yet we feel the pressure to do more as they
get older. Every family makes their own
choices about education. It is a
personal thing I know. But no matter
what choice you make you can still choose to trust that your child is naturally
curious and wants to learn about the world around them. Observe your child, take an interest in what
they love. Offer yourself more as a
facilitator and see where that leads, even if that is after a regular school
program. I have plenty of posts on this
over at my blog. One big step we took was in trusting my son
with learning
to read. He did this in his own time
and that is okay. When a child can be
trusted to learn (this can be anything from academics, skipping, cooking…) they
will grasp and retain it more deeply and often faster, because it means more to
them.
Play is the work of children. They take what they have observed and
solidify the concepts in their play. It
is a beautiful thing that we need to encourage and embrace. Children also learn through imitation. It takes a great deal of courage as a parent
to trust that their play is valuable and important. Children need unstructured time to grow and
develop. To an adult it can look as a
waste of time, or just silly play. Some
times we all need a little play time to unwind!
But when you trust and believe that what they are doing is of value, you
will start to see the messy playroom through a different lens. Once you start to research, read, ask
questions and go with what you feel is best for your children, put it into
practice. You will gain more confidence
in your self and start to trust yourself!
This can be a huge step for parents trying to make decisions that are
different from family and friends around them.
Children can negotiate and work their way through social
interactions we don’t always need to step in.
I have seen so much growth in my boys since starting to attend the Little Seeds
meet-ups. One day in the forest the boys were playing some type of tagging
game. There were good guys and bad
guys. After a short while we noticed
that all the bad guys wanted to be on the good team. The children gathered to decide who should be
on which team. As parents we were
curious to see how this might play out.
We stood back and watched with interest.
The children tried eenie-meenie-minie-mo to put people onto the bad
team. But then those kids still didn’t
want to be bad guys. So they talked some
more and decided to play a different game entirely running up and down a
hill. It was beautiful. Children are fully capable of collaborating,
sharing their feeling and working together.
We also need to let go and allow the children to speak up and voice when
they don’t like something that is happening.
This may take some adult help for the quieter spoken ones, but it really
makes more of a difference to hear it from another child rather than an adult.
Something that can help with social interactions is to play
the roll of a sports-caster. Simply
stating back to the children what they are saying can help them to come up with
solutions. Our role again is to help
them problem solve not to tell them what to do.
Try asking the children to come up with guidelines, rules, and
solutions. Often times they will come up
with the same things or more than you had in mind. It may take some time and not always work how
you expected. But over time they will
learn valuable life skills and trust their own decision-making. You will have more confidence in your child
too.
Children can be trusted to make decisions. Now this totally depends on your personal parenting
style and comfort level. If it doesn’t
resonate with you that is okay. In our
home I try to let my boys have more freedom to make everyday decisions. My older son will go outside to check the
weather and then choose what he’d like to wear.
My younger son would live in footie jammies all day long, but prefers to
get dressed if we are going out to a public place. So I let them pick their clothes (from those
that I’ve already sorted through and brought into our home). If our home is well stocked with healthy food
then my boys can pack their own snacks for an outing and help to make a lot of
their own meals. We do talk a lot about
healthy eating and their personal food sensitivities. I thought for sure when I gave them more
freedom that they’d only eat junk.
Really they do eat variety over the week, provided it isn’t right before
grocery day. I’d like to encourage you
wherever you are at to trust your children enough to give them more choices and
freedom. It will build their confidence
and help to encourage cooperation since you aren’t always telling them what to
do all day.
As you can see, when we let go a little and trust it builds
confidence in everyone. This allows more
trust, deeper connections and amazing things to happen in our family! If you are still unsure or hesitant about
letting go of too much control, that it totally understandable. Try journaling about your feelings. Write down what you observe. Take pictures or keep track of any
successes. Look back over your journal, especially
on those rough days. You will be
pleasantly surprised at how far you’ve come!
Meaghan is the director of Learning in the Woods. She also home schools her children and blogs
over at Joyful Mud Puddles.
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