A Strong View of Children

As I have given tours to new families I explain our philosophy beginning with, “We view children as competent.” and most people think, yes of course, but honestly most people don’t view children as competent. The truth is children’s brains are designed to learn. They are hard-wired to pick up language, learn, and want to explore. When we view children as competent that then changes our role away from teacher to facilitator, language model, safe keeper, secure base, and ultimately, the encourager. It is our role as teaches and your role as parents to provide children with an opportunity to explore, learn, and grow. But we have a problem in our society. Many parents and teachers have become the ‘fixers’ or prob-lem solver instead of the support system. If you view your child as too small to do it or just a baby, then you are taking their power away and stealing from them their chance problem solve and to learn. The effect of not viewing your child as competent is your child will not view themselves as competent. So how do you begin to change this mindset? Give your child opportunities to show their competencies. Support children as they take calculated risks. Find ‘jobs’ for your child to do around the house. Consider that in history farming families had many children to help support the family. Many families will say, “What can my non-mobile infant do to help?” Your non-mobile infant does a lot of things everyday; she brings a smile to your face every time you see her, he greets you and his family with a loud coo. If we view these things as contributions to our family’s happiness then your infant mobile or not will feel empowered, will feel competent. Your toddler can learn to greet guests or help to set out napkins for dinner. Little ones can help you remember the keys or help lock the door on the way out of the house. Giving children jobs, no matter how small, tells them that you view them as competent and valuable members of your family. The feeling of accomplishment a child gets after doing something helpful is the intrinsic base for our behavior in society and ultimately the motivator for doing ‘good’. Remember not to judge or praise children’s contribution but rather relate them back to your family values so children can be their own judge of their behaviors. You could say, “You smiled at grandma, and look she smiled back.” or “You welcomed your cousins by showing them your toys, that’s part of being a friend.” or “You put all the napkins on the table so we will be able to stay clean at dinner.” None of those sentences judged the children with good or bad simply noticing children’s accomplishments says you value their contribution. If you make this language change at 6 months, it will begin to come naturally and you will start to view your child as competent contributors to your family. I just finished reading the parenting book “Free Range Kids” and the au-thor explained the world is not more dangerous now than it was before. “Childhood is supposed to be about discovering the world, not being held captive. It’s not about having the world pointed out to you by a DVD or by your mom as you drive by, See honey that’s a forest.” (pg 193). We want to support you to view your children as competent and able to get out, explore, get dirty, make mistakes, learn, and contribute.