How to Encourage
Your Child’s
Autonomy
|by Kelly Bartlett
Certified Positive
Discipline Educator
“I can’t do that.” My son’s 5-year-old friend was
over for lunch and was staring at the ketchup
bottle on the table in front of him. He had just
asked for some ketchup, and I had passed the
bottle to him.
of responsive parenting, was I inadvertently
enabling my children to be unable to complete
basic skills on their own? Was I assuming immaturity or incompetency when neither was
true?
I clarified, “You can’t squirt your own ketchup?”
As parents, we
responsive parenting,
take care of our
was I inadvertently
kids, hour after
hour, day after
enabling my children
day, year after
to be unable to
year. It becomes
complete basic skills
easy to develop
habits of doing
on their own?”
things for them
that they are eventually able to do themselves.
When we’ve been in the habit of doing them
for so long—such as squirting their ketchup—
we may not recognize the point at which children are capable of taking over these tasks for
themselves.
“No, I don’t know how.”
I quickly recovered from a moment of genuine
surprise and said, “Well, you start by flipping
open the cap…Great, now turn the bottle over
and squeeze some on your plate.”
After some initial hesitation and uncertainty
about the outcome of this action, our little
friend got the ketchup he needed and went
home with a new skill that day. It turns out he
had always had his condiments squirted for
him and hadn’t the confidence to do it himself
when presented with the opportunity.
It made me wonder what kinds of services I
might be doing for my kids that they are capable of doing for themselves. In the name
“In the name of
The age of autonomy emerges around age 1-2
years old, about the time when a child begins
to say things like, “Me do it!” or yells and pushes your hand away when you try to help with
her work. Autonomy is a natural part of the
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