13 Jun
2006
This summer I will be presenting a workshop called: “Nurturing Independence In Your Child” for parents of deaf children. It’s very easy when raising a child with a disability, to stifle independence. No one does it consciously; we mostly do it to protect.
While I’m addressing this particular group of parents I will point out that parents of typical children often don’t encourage independence although we all say we want our kids to grow up and become independent. Sometimes we send mixed messages. For example who doesn’t want their child to be financially independent yet how many of us bail our older kids out of a bind? We want them to be independent thinkers yet we tend to want them to think like us.
When our young children are learning to do certain tasks we have a hard time watching them struggle so we finish off the job or do the whole thing for them. We zip up their zippers and button their buttons and tie their shoes.
Are we doing all we can as parents to nurture independence?
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