Having been told that children need to be exposed to many experiences and stimulated from an early age, I sometimes find that children are doing too much and are feeling stressed and overloaded. What is the answer and how can we best help our children?
The average child seems to be exposed to more and more in their early years, but seems to be less focused, less goal-orientated and less likely to stick to activities. Why is this? – certainly children are no less intelligent. As a studio piano teacher I find my job gets harder and harder. More and more children seem to lack the skills to succeed.
Often television is blamed for causing shorter attention spans but the answer is more complex. Everyone knows that interested children concentrate very hard for long periods of time. There are probably many reasons for lack of focus, including having so many interesting things to choose from, but to some extent the problem is caused by our own lack of expectations for our children, and their lack of day-to-day problem-solving skills and sense of responsibility. Many children from an young age do not expect to succeed.
I know every parent wants the best for their child but these days we take a lot of responsibility off our children. We chauffeur them from door to door because of stranger danger, so they acquire little road sense; we don’t let them go to the park or shops alone so they perceive it is something they are incapable of doing; we book them into many extracurricular activities so they are given the impression that they can’t organize their own time without you. Not surprisingly children are losing the ability to think for themselves and to set their own goals. Of course we do not want to expose them to danger, but building up their coping skills and talking about day-to-day dangers and how to avoid them will greatly increase their self-esteem and stop them being a helpless prisoner.
Too many extracurricular activities mean things are poorly done, so again children feel everything is too hard for them. They feel defeated and don’t expect to succeed. We should be gradually giving them more responsibility as their age and experience warrants.
How can we help our children be more independent?:
1. Start giving children more responsibility in certain areas.
2. Discuss things with them and encourage them to come up with solutions.
3. Assume children will succeed in their endeavours and support them only as much as they need.
4. Support children with enthusiasm, joy and the confidence that they will succeed.
5. Help them set their own goals – and set them a little higher that you would expect – they might surprise you!
6. Enjoy your children. Allow them only to take on activities that they really want to do, and give them time just to be a kid and do some free thinking.
