Learning How To Let Go
Parents, especially American parents, sometimes obsess about safety. While we certainly want to encourage parental warmth and love (especially with newborns and toddlers), as children mature, you must create safe spaces to let them explore on their own. As we recognize at our girls-only and boys-only summer camps here in the Midwest, by giving children opportunities to overcome discomfort in new situations, they grow into competent, independent adults. As a blog by Steve Baskin—former executive board member of the American Camp Association (in this article from Psychology Today) discusses—children need to be given room to explore and become able to adapt to new environments on their own.
The bullets below include some paraphrasing of the article’s main points, with the whole article available at this link:
- Although providing safety is the primary goal of early parenting, fostering independence and success is the goal of later parenting.
- The typical American parent is too focused on perceived safety; however, keeping a child too “safe” often shelters her from experiences that enable her to grow.
- Independence and skill-acquisition can put a child in a position to experience necessary fear, failure and discomfort. If, by being too safety-minded, we try to eliminate discomfort, we also impede growth.
- Without having experiences independent of her parents, a child cannot learn that she can thrive independently of her parents.
- Without overcoming a few challenges, a child will never learn that he has the “goods” to overcome challenges.
- A parent who micro-manages her child’s friendships prevents the child from attaining independence and confidence in important ways. Letting a child work out conflicts in childhood friendships gives them practice for relationships later in life. Choosing one’s own friends is also important in gaining separation and independence from parents.
- Getting homesick or initially failing in an effort to learn a new skill are a part of the learning process. Once success is achieved, the child knows that future successes are possible.
- Experiences that stretch children provide true self-esteem and cultivate the interpersonal skills necessary to thrive as an adult.