Often parents are too quick to step in and handle situations for children rather than letting them experience the negative or positive effects of their actions. When children are allowed to live free from false authority, they learn the advantages of moderation and hard work.
Pampering and controlling are two behaviors that kill the self-discipline that is innate in every child. Parents who pamper give the child everything he/she needs or wants without ever expecting anything in return. The child never learns to meet their own needs or create their own experiences.
Controlling parents replace normal outcomes with their own contrived punishments or rewards. This separates the child’s behavior from its affect on reality.
Children can only learn the value of effort and hard work in an environment that allows them to experience pitfalls and mistakes.
In order to produce responsibility, parents must allow the natural consequences of their children’s behavior to be experienced. This leads to a profound understanding of familial roles, chores, and striving for achievement.
One of the fears of natural consequences is that they will cause negative associations with everyday duties. The opposite is true. Children who are controlled or given everything without making an effort are numbed from both the reality and the benefits of their endeavors.
InHealing Our Children, the author explains, “In many indigenous groups, children are rarely or never told what to do or not to do. They are allowed to play and experience life as they wish. As adults, they then have positive associations with doing work.”
When parents allow their children to find out what happens when they don’t water their plant or bring their bike in from the rain, they are allowing that child to develop a value system for their own choices.
Eventually, children who must make real choices in a world where real consequences occur learn that they were created to both work and refrain from certain things.
By letting children make their own mistakes and successes, parents can help develop self-discipline and a willingness to accept responsibility.
