Encouraging Kids to Become Independent Learners

Many years ago, at a homeschooling picnic, I met a family who had a baby a little less than a year old. I watched her as we sat on a picnic rug together, eating our sandwiches. The little girl reached for a knife. It was rather big and sharp. I looked at the mother and father, expecting them to take it off their child. But they didn’t make a move. I felt obliged to do something, so I smiled at the baby and offered her a safe cup to hold while retrieving the dangerous knife. The father noticed what I had done and said, “We don’t take knives off our children.”

I guess the idea behind the father’s attitude is that a child will learn the right way to deal with a knife by watching our example, and by being allowed to handle one. As long as we don’t act with fear, she will be quite safe. A child will become afraid if she thinks we are afraid, and that’s when accidents happen.

I have been thinking about this incident.

Do we place too many restrictions on what our children can and cannot do? Do we underestimate their capabilities?

Leonie, a fellow blogger, reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about for a long time. She wrote:

Independence for my teen sons has begun, not in the teenage years, but in the toddler years. When they want to sit on a ‘big chair’ and not in their high chair or on mummy’s lap for meals… I let them. When they push the chair to the toaster to try to make their own toast for breakfast… I encourage them and show them how.

Toast for breakfast? I smiled as I remembered three-year-old Gemma-Rose making her own breakfast. Actually, she might have been only two. I forget exactly. Anyway, she was a tiny little thing, but she could reach the oven griller. She knew how to press the gas pilot button and turn the dial to light it. She knew how to pull out the tray and lay her bread on it. She was quite capable of making her own toast. And she never burnt herself once.

So Gemma-Rose made her own breakfast because she was capable, and because she was shown how, and because I let her. 

She still thinks she is capable of doing everything her older siblings can do.

Gemma-Rose’s head is inside the washing machine. Her legs are dangling over the side. She emerges and throws a handful of wet clothes down to the basket, resting on the floor. Then she disappears once again. By the time I discover her, the basket is almost full.

I carry the basket outside to the clothesline. Gemma-Rose grabs a pair of socks and a couple of pegs and hops up onto a chair. Up and down, up and down. She works by my side, and soon, the washing is all pegged out. I thank her, and she smiles.

The other afternoon, Gemma-Rose came running to me and said, “Are we leaving the washing on the line overnight?”

I replied, “I think it will be dry by now, so we’ll bring it in.”

Gemma-Rose ran off. A few minutes later, I followed and discovered she was standing on a chair unpegging the washing. I started to help. And before long, Imogen, Charlotte and Sophie appeared too. It didn’t take long for the word to go around: there was a washing party going on in the back garden, and everyone wanted to come along and be involved.

I thought Gemma-Rose would be happy with all the help, but she was scowling. “I was going to bring in the washing,” she said. “I can do it all by myself.”

When it came time to carry in the three baskets of washing, Gemma-Rose went to pick one up, and I said, “That’s too heavy for you. Let one of the bigger girls carry it.” Then I realised what I’d done. I had underestimated her capabilities. I wasn’t giving her an opportunity to demonstrate what she was able to do. I was treating her like a baby and wasn’t encouraging her towards growth and independence.

How many times do we hold our children back? And why do we? Sometimes I think we are just careless with our words. We have our stock sentences that we say without considering their truth: “You’re too young. You’re too little. It’s too heavy. It’s too difficult.” And maybe we just want to avoid the work that comes with letting our children become independent workers. Often it is easier and faster for me to do a task than it is to take the time to show Gemma-Rose how to do it, and then wait for her to carry it out.

I remember discussing the question: how can we encourage our high schoolers to become independent learners? It all begins when our children are very young. It’s about letting them make toast and allowing them to carry a heavy washing basket. These things may not seem to have anything to do with academic learning. But one forms the foundation for the other. Children are capable and will become independent as long as we give them the necessary opportunities. 

But I’m still not sure about letting babies play with big sharp knives. What if there was an accident? (Parents sometimes unexpectedly cut themselves.) Do I need more time to consider this idea? Or maybe not?  What do you think?