Other than leading our kids to God, my husband and I considered that our primary job as parents was to prepare our children to become independent, self-supporting adults who give back to their communities.
So from the time they were babies, my husband and I did everything we could to foster independence and self-reliance in our children.
The first step towards independence is being out of the womb. After that comes turning over without help, sitting up, sleeping more than a few hours at a stretch, eating without help (my children were breastfed, so I’m talking about once they were weaned, which was at six months for one daughter and one year for the other daughter), amusing themselves with a toy, talking, walking, etc.
We encouraged all of these skills and helped our children to achieve them as soon as they were ready. For example, more often than not, my babies were on the floor on a mat or blanket. Of course I held them, but I didn’t wear them–I let them have the freedom of movement to develop all the muscles they needed to crawl and walk and run and eventually ice skate.
Same for talking–I talked with my babies, not in baby talk, but as one person to another. I used age-apppriate language, of course, but I talked to them, and I listened to them “talk,” and we had real conversations constantly.
All the skills that children develop don’t just happen by accident. Parents help train children to achieve these skills.
As the children got older, my husband and I turned over more and more responsibilities to them. E.g., when my children were around 8 years old, they started doing their own laundry. We had an automatic washer and dryer–I saw no reason why 8-year olds, who play with some pretty complex toys, couldn’t launder, dry, fold, and put away their own clothes.
They had to get up on their own by the time they were in school–I didn’t go into their rooms and gently shake them awake. They had alarm clocks and they were responsible for setting them for the correct time (around 5:00 a.m., because they spent an hour at the skating rink before school).
They had to make their lunches by age 9 or 10. By age 13, I stopped buying clothes for them, other than underwear and school gym suits–I told them to use their own money for their clothes, and if they wanted more money, they had to find jobs and earn it. One daughter found a neighborhood babysitting job, and the other daughter persuaded a Subway to hire her. We weren’t poor. We could afford their clothing. But it was important for them to learn that clothing and other material goods didn’t just appear in the Magic Money Tree.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Dr. James Dobson wrote that a child should have mastered all the skills needed to function as an adult by age 16. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, money management, driving, etc.–age 16. We went for that goal and pretty much achieved it.
And all through their lives, we taught them that when they graduated from high school, they would be expected to leave home and start their adult lives. For both of our girls, this meant college. If they had not gone to college, they would have been expected to move out and work, or get married, or join the military, or go to trade school–but not stay home.
We’re happy with the approach that we used. Both of our daughters praise us for it. We know a lot of parents who still have grown “children” living with them, but we don’t. We planned for their independence, worked to make it happen, and it happened.
I will treasure each and every response, even if I don’t reply to each individually. :yup:
