Help them help themselves 

Help them help themselves

from Dr Judith Locke

When was the last time you helped your children help themselves? And by that I don’t mean the last time you handed them the pizza box. I mean when was the last time your actions were with the sole goal of making your child or teen more independent?

Parenting these days is much more associated with extra parental effort for children.  More actions to show your child you love them, more attempts to make them always happy, more behind the scenes work to help them become successful, the gentle reminders for them to finish their homework (and the very firm reminders to do their homework). It’s all with the best of intentions, but it is not always helpful.

The problem is that an increase of parenting help comes an increase in children’s dependence on their parent providing this sort of help. Regularly remind your child about their responsibilities and they will start to rely on this reminder every single time. Bring their forgotten lunch or their swimming gear up to school, and they start to think that remembering things is optional and they can rely on you being their memory backup.

Constant parent reminders are becoming so typical, that an educational psychologist colleague of mine believes she is seeing a decrease in children’s short-term memory skills. And you can understand the cause. Why would a child or teen need to develop that part of their brain, if they can rely on their parent to be their memory back-up drive?

It’s not only their retention skills parents can stunt by overdoing help for children. 

Parent’s well-meaning actions to turn their children’s sadness into happiness instantly also make kids more dependent on their parent or someone else in their life always making it better. That’s fine if they are always going to be surrounded by people who will take the time to improve things for them – but it’s very unlikely that this will always be the case. 

Every child is going to have to face difficult things (not getting on the team, missing out on the job, or not getting the rental property they wanted) at some point. If they haven’t learnt how to cope with disappointment, then it is going to be much more challenging for them.

How do you turn this around? Well, it’s best not to change everything immediately. But small incremental steps are going to work much better.

For example, next time they come home expressing disappointment in something that happened that day, don’t fix it immediately by a phone call to the school, or instantly make them happy again with a food treat. Instead, try talking to them a little about their frustration, resisting the impulse to make it immediately better for them. This will allow them to learn how to talk through and eventually accept the situation or develop the impetus to change their circumstances through their own efforts. 

Next time you have the urge to remind your teen about their home tasks or chores, stop yourself, and give them the chance to remember it themselves. Or let them experience the costs of their lack of organization. In fact, it is only by them experiencing the consequences of their choices that will truly encourage them to develop the self-regulation they need to complete their daily responsibilities and eventually step up to adulthood.

I know parents always want to help and that it is ultimately with great love. But helping children to learn how to help themselves is going to be parental assistance that provides truly long-term benefits for them.

Takeaway for parents

Here are some other ideas that will help children help themselves.

• When they have a problem, encourage them to brainstorm solutions.
• To help them at first, encourage them to come up with some ideas mixed with your own ideas. 
• Help them with pros and cons of the ideas that are discussed and get them to choose which one.
• Assist them choose which one they will do and maybe coach and encourage them as they complete the steps of the plan. 
• After they do this, have them to evaluate it all and what they might do next time.
• Praise them for the huge step forward that they have taken.

© Judith Locke

Dr Judith Locke is a Clinical Psychologist and registered teacher who presents sessions for parents and teachers at schools around Australia and internationally. 

For more of Judith’s work read her parenting books, The Bonsai Child (also available in Mandarin) and The Bonsai Student. Her most recent book is Raising Anxiety, written with Dr Danielle Einstein. 

You can also follow Judith’s Facebook page Confident and Capable.

Dr Locke conducted a staff presentation followed by a two-hour presentation to parents of Mount Alvernia College and Padua College.  Both sessions were very well received by our community.