011: Teaching Independence and Allowing Your Kid to Make Mistakes

1 hour, 5 minutes
As parents, there are few things more difficult than seeing our children make mistakes or take on new responsibilities. When we allow them to experience the discomfort of failure and responsibility, it can feel like we are failing as parents and burdening our children unnecessarily.

Ben and Rachel tackle these topics head-on in an episode that is packed with encouraging and challenging thoughts for how we can give responsibility as a gift out of love, and use failure as our ally in teaching our children how to live better lives.

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As parents, there are few things more difficult than seeing our children make mistakes or take on new responsibilities. When we allow them to experience the discomfort of failure and responsibility, it can feel like we are failing as parents and burdening our children unnecessarily.

Ben and Rachel tackle these topics head-on in an episode that is packed with encouraging and challenging thoughts for how we can give responsibility as a gift out of love, and use failure as our ally in teaching our children how to live better lives.

Highlights, Takeaways, & Quick Wins:

Bestowing responsibility on your children is a gift, not a burden.
Working with your children on new skills trumps verbal instruction.
The best way to help your child develop their problem solving skills is to stop solving all of their problems for them.
We must remember that a skill that seems easy for us may difficult for a child who is still learning that skill.
Even the smallest responsibility our children take on is a contribution to the family.
Don’t prevent natural consequences. They are a powerful teacher.
Avoid getting emotionally involved when enforcing consequences.
Failure is a learning opportunity.
Who we are can determine our choices, but our choices do not determine who we are.
When your child fails, focus on keeping the lines of communication. Let them tell the story of what happened.

Shownotes:

Change Your Mindset About Responsibilities

06:19 Ben: When it comes to learning new responsibilities, the first and most important thing you can do to help your child is to change the way you think about bestowing responsibility. I began to see a change in the way my child accepted responsibility when I realized that I was not burdening my child, but equipping them with skills they’ll need later in life. When you bestow responsibility and teach your child a new skill, you are doing them a favor. It’s a gift you are giving to them out of love.
07:55 Rachel: We started our children out on wiping the table, which is one of the easier chores. Now sweeping is in the mix, and the kids really don’t like it. Our six year old was complaining about it, and I told him, “It’s good for you to learn how to sweep because one day it’s going to really help your room-mate or spouse.”

Set Purposeful Time Aside to Develop Skills

09:52 Ben: When you’re ready to start giving your child more responsibility, make a list of the new skills you’d like for them to learn and take them one at a time. As a note, you should be sure that these new skills and responsibilities are age appropriate. Eventually you want to be able to trust that they will handle their responsibility without you having to work with them, but in the beginning, your willingness to teach them one and one will help them learn faster. Working with your child always trumps verbal instruction.

Let Your Child Solve the Problems

11:54 Sometimes your child will run into some difficulty or a problem they can’t easily solve. It’s in your child’s best interest that you don’t always solve the problem for them. There’s great value, not just in knowing how to solve a problem, but in knowing you can solve problems.
12:25 Rachel: Our oldest hates homework and sometimes he’ll give up on a problem when he’s stumped. It’s hard not to want to give him easy hints so that he can figure it out without too much effort.
13:05 Ben:We have found creative ways to restate the problem in a way that helps our oldest see it from a new perspective. Often, a few added perspectives gives him the understanding he needs to work through the problem using his own problem solving skills.

Use Better Language to Instill Self Confidence

14:13 Ben: Sometimes our oldest would become frustrated with his homework and say “I can’t do it.” We’ve made an effort to give him better words to describe more accurately what he is experiencing. Instead of saying “I can’t” we encourage him to say, “I’m still learning” or “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
15:18 Rachel: A way that we as parents tend to misuse language is telling our children “You can figure it out, it’s easy.” Though it’s not our intention, it can leave our children feeling like it should be easy and if it’s not it must mean they aren’t smart.
16:03 Ben: Think about something you don’t understand as an adult. Maybe it’s rocket science or medical science. It could be that you can understand a little bit of what you’re seeing, but the rest looks like gibberish. To us, the problems our children are trying to solve may seem very easy and straightforward because of the knowledge and experience we have. Our children are just beginning to learn and that means that it will feel harder for them at first.
16:58 Rachel: Our children could also have been having a bad day or aren’t feeling well. Being in tune with our child can help us understand the things that might have an influence on their ability to do their work.
17:33 Ben: Something that goes hand in hand with recognizing how difficult the work is for our children is encouraging their hard work. Again, the work they are doing may seem like it’s easy because we understanding it, but if it’s a new concept for your child, it’s likely difficult. We can encourage their hard work by saying something like, “You worked really hard on that problem.”

The Value of Being a Contributor

18:31 Ben: For our children, we do our best to match our child’s responsibility with freedom. As adults, we experience a direct correlation between how self-disciplined we are, and how much person freedom we enjoy. It’s good for us to teach our children early on to make that connection.

Any Responsibility, Big or Small, Our Child Takes on For Themselves is a Contribution to the Family.

19:36 Ben: When our children demonstrate responsibility, it’s important to let them know that they are a contributor. Even something as simple as putting their own shoes on is a contribution. I might say, “Because you tied your own shoes, I was able to get a yummy snack for everyone.” Contribution is not a marker of worth. Our children are inherently valuable. There is added value when people who live in community share responsibilities.
21:19 Rachel: Use trial and error with independence. Some children may seem ready when they’re really not. It’s important to know where your child is developmentally and be realistic about the amount of freedom and responsibility they can handle.

The Hidden Trap of Being Smart and Talented

23:17 Ben: Brookes shared this comment in the chat: “I wish someone told me this: Hey, that art is looking good. You have a lot of natural talent. You are well on your way to becoming great if you put in the work and learning to become great.” This comes back to the importance of using the right kind of language. It might feel right to tell our child “Great job” when they perform a task well, but in doing so we are asserting our own ideas of how they did and children often attach those sentiments to their self worth. It’s better to make observations about the work they are doing.
24:25 Rachel: I was told all my life I was smart. When I ran into things that didn’t just come naturally, I wouldn’t even try them because if it was difficult for me maybe that meant I wasn’t smart and I didn’t want to do anything that made people think I wasn’t smart.

Independence Related Questions

25:25 Ben: Charla asks, “What do you do when natural consequences still don’t get them to remember their new responsibilities?” Sometimes Jadon asks me to get him some milk, even though he can do it for himself. If I’m too busy, I’ll remind him that he can do it. A natural consequence of not getting up to get his own milk is that he won’t have any milk to drink. Where there are natural consequences, let those consequences play out. Charla asks another question: “How do you let them experience their mistakes when the natural consequence isn’t possible?”
28:00 Rachel: Sometimes Jadon refuses to do his homework and the consequence for not doing homework consistently is that he might not pass the grade his is currently in. He’s not really old enough to understand the gravity of that consequence, so we assign a consequence to that choice that he can understand.
30:11 Ben: One of the most important things when enforcing consequences beyond the natural consequences is to not allow your feelings about the situation to get involved. You want it to feel as matter of fact as the natural consequences. You may be able to accomplish this by being a little more creative and finding natural consequences that may not seem as obvious.
32:08 Ben: Aaron asks, “Are any of your children on the extreme ends of the independence spectrum?”
32:22 Rachel: We definitely have kids on either extreme. Our oldest is very independent, while our second oldest is much more dependent in certain areas. I had to talk to his teacher about a tendency he has to second guess his answers. He doesn’t trust himself enough to feel confident in his own work without seeking the approval of an adult. We’ve worked with him to help him develop more confidence by turning his questions back on him and making him think critically and definitively about his answers.
34:30 Ben: I really like self affirmation. I’d rather our child look at his work and believe for himself that he did a good job, than to need me to say it in order for it to be true for him.

Failure

35:57 Ben: The relationship I’ve had with failure has been fairly unhealthy up until a few years ago. I was in a cycle where I was afraid to make choices out of the fear that it would lead to failure. This is a misunderstanding of failure. Mistakes and failures can be positive. The more experiences you have with failure, the more opportunities you have to learn something you didn’t know before and can fix in the future.

The Home is a Failure Testing Ground

37:44 Ben: Childhood is the optimal time for making mistakes. At home is where mistakes can be uncomfortable, but not dire. Certainly we wouldn’t let our child rollerblade on the highway, but we shouldn’t shield them from every potential failure. If we can anticipate when our child will fail, we can facilitate a learning opportunity that will help them to be more successful in the future.
40:45 Rachel: When our oldest was in second grade, he had some difficulty controlling his emotions. He ended up having in school suspension for a few days and it was very difficult to let him go through that without intervening and changing the situation. Looking back, we had some great conversations and learned a lot about emotions. One of the most important lessons we learned from that time is that we are more than what we do. Going through that at first I felt like a failure. It’s easy to feel like we’re failing when our kids our failing, but the truth is we get to learn with them and we are all better for it.

Focus on Affirming Your Child’s Identity

43:15 Ben: The most important role we play in our child’s experience with failure, is re-affirming our child’s identity. Our child’s identity is not attached to their mistakes. Who they are can define their choices, but their choices do not define who they are. When our children are going through emotional distress, our energy is better spend affirming who they really are versus trying to change or shape the situation to make it easier for them.

Let Your Child Learn From Their Own Story

46:10 Ben: The phrase “I told you so” undermines our child’s trust in themselves to foresee the outcome of a situation. Instead of reminding them of your forewarning, open up the lines of communication. Ask them what happened and let them tell the story. When they tell the story, they’re more likely to learn the lesson.
50:08 Rachel: One of the questions I like to ask to help prompt the story is “What could you have done differently?”

Embrace Failure and Mistakes

51:56 Ben: Mistakes and failures are not something to be avoided. They’re learning opportunities. If you have the right relationship with failure, it can be a very positive experience that helps you learn how to do things better or differently in the future.
54:45 Ben: Ryan asks, “Is it better to most of the time tell your child they made a mistake, or most of the time let them realize it on their own?” I am in favor of not pointing out the mistake, but rather focusing on keeping the lines of communication open and letting them tell the story of what happened.
55:57 Rachel: As an encouragement, I would share that it took some practice for our children to be able to tell the story. They’re going to have a difficult time articulating their mistakes at first, but be patient and give them plenty of opportunities to practice.