How to Train your Kid to be Independent

It’s been a couple of weeks since your kid went back to school and you’re already swamped with house chores as well as work commitments. It’s never been more crucial to teach your kid basic life skills so they can be self-reliant even if it’s to a small extent. Training your kid to be independent can be a long and exhausting process but you’ll love the fruits of your labor! This is easier said than done because it takes a lot of patience and effort to let your child do something she doesn’t know how to instead of just doing it yourself. You must remind yourself each day that letting your child do small chores will not only help them stand on their own feet but will also instill a sense of self-confidence. Here are some tips to help you train your kid to become more and more self-reliant.

1. Start early.
No age is too young for a kid to do simple tasks like going to the bathroom by himself. If you think he can do it in a safe manner, don’t hesitate to start early on. Every week, you can add a task to the list of life skills you’d like to teach your kid. It can start with simple things like tying one’s laces to packing a knapsack for school and over time get more complex like buying groceries with you watching over him.

2. Let them make decisions.
Good decision-making is an essential life skill and like all skills, practice makes perfect. Give your kid options and ask them the reason for the choices they make. The trick here is to limit the options your kid doesn’t get overwhelmed in their decision making. Let your child know which decisions require more thought than others so that they know how big the impact of each of their decision is. You can further improve your kid’s decision-making skill by giving them scenarios that require them to make a decision.

3. Resist the urge to help out.
Once you give your kid a task, take a step back and allow her to do it in her own pace. Unless it’s a safety issue, helping her would defeat the purpose of this whole exercise. Be patient and remember that she might take a long time and may not do it right the first few times.

4. Make a list of opportunities.
This list could be endless if you don’t take their age and ability into account. Based on your kid’s age and experience, make a list of ten tasks you think they can do on their own and spread them out over the next ten weeks based on exceeding difficulty. Hand-holding is fine at first but after a few days of training your kid how to do a chore, you should start seeing results. If you find that your kid is not able to grasp something, find out what their obstacle to learning is and adjust your training accordingly.

5. Make learning new tasks fun and rewarding.
These days kids are under a lot of pressure at school. Make extra effort to ensure your child is enjoying the training you give him and reward each milestone with a mini prize. This way he will subconsciously associate doing the task to getting what they love as a result. If your kid has had a bad day, skip training for a day. It’s also a good idea to track his progress in a notebook that you keep handy. Above all, don’t forget to have fun with your bundle of joy as he learns new life skills.