Letting Children be Children
In his book Parenting for Everyone Vijayadev Yogendra says, “A child needs time to be a child; he or she should not be made into a small adult. A child must have time to lose the immaturities of childhood.” We know that there are many pressures on families that can push the child into premature independence, but an interesting factor is what has been termed the ‘parent expectation gap’. This comes about when we over-estimate what children are capable of at a particular age. Research from the USA found:
- 43% of parents think children can share and take turns with other children before the age of 3, but this ability only develops between the ages 3 and 4.
- 36% think children under the age of 2 have enough control to resist the impulse to do something forbidden and 56% say this happens before the age of 3 whereas most children are not able to do this until they are 3 ½ or 4 years old.
- 23% think children under the age of 1 can control their emotions and not have a tantrum when frustrated and another 18% expect this to happen before 2, whereas this control is not developed until 3 ½ or 4 years of age.
Recently concerns have been expressed about some unintended consequences of the idea of resilience. Many people who have poor self-esteem and/or alternatively high expectations of themselves might needlessly suffer because they see themselves as not having the necessary resilience to cope and will try to just 'tough it out' . Adaptability gives more scope for alternatives. In a situation of bullying at work for example, options include reporting the offender or even leaving the job if no action is taken. This might mean accepting a number of changes in circumstances. Being able to accept the need to change and the ability to adapt is going to make that a lot easier.
Recently I have been reading a very interesting book called Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, Professor of Global Health. The byline – Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things are Better than You Think – describes in a nutshell what the book is about. In it, Professor Rosling explains how everyone, from factory workers to university professors, United Nations officials, world bankers and aid agency workers, consistently view the world as a worse place than it is.
The fourth factor I want to talk about here is something Vijay Yogendra called Innateness. Vijay felt that “Each child comes with a gift, and it is up to us (parents and teachers) to unwrap it!”