OUR GOAL as parents is to raise independent, responsible and resourceful adults and we measure our success by how much we are no longer needed when our children turn 21. In other words, to be successful as parents, we make ourselves more and more irrelevant as our children grow older.

We relinquish our children to their independence gradually -- in a series of surrenders. It begins at the moment of birth, when we surrender them to the world beyond the womb. They then learn to respond to their names, recognize their reflections in the mirror, and find their designated places at the dinner table. They give up their feeding bottles, venture into a preschool, join a sleepover, and discover the thrill of teenage gimmicking. Through the years, we keep surrendering our children -- to their nannies, to their grannies, to their teachers, to their peer groups, to significant others, to employers, and finally to their spouses.

Letting go entails a number of balancing acts: between our expectations of our children and their abilities; between concern and indulgence; between giving them autonomy and imposing discipline; and between holding on and letting go.

Balancing Act: Our Expectations of our Children and their Abilities

The first balancing act we do as parents is between our expectations of our children and their abilities. We start by learning what children, in general, are capable of at each stage of development.

Dr. Jerome Kagan, a professor of human development at Harvard, cites four examples of biological preparedness in children that are universal.

First, at around 8-9 months of age, the human brain reaches an important milestone. Now the infant can remember the past and becomes vulnerable to anxiety. It may cry if a parent leaves the house. A two-month-old baby rarely cries to this event. The 8-month-old baby cries because as the mother leaves, it is able to compare the memory of her presence with the fact that she is absent. It cannot understand this and so it becomes anxious.

A second preparedness involves our moral sense. Between the ages of 18 and 24 months, all children with an intact brain will become concerned with flawed objects. A child this age will see a cup with a crack and will say, “Fix it, Mommy, broke, Mommy.” This sense of the proper occurs by two years because the child is now mature enough to recognize that there is an ideal and non-ideal form and that the ideal is better. The child understands right and wrong events.

A third ability which emerges is empathy. At two years of age, if a child lives with other people, he can infer that a person or an animal might be suffering. This empathy for the state of another is a fundamental human emotion that does not have to be taught.

Let’s say you are watching Joey and Kyle -- a pair of two-year-olds playing. Joey takes a toy away from Kyle, and Kyle cries. Joey’s face may become tense and within a few minutes he will give a toy to Kyle – a form of penance reflecting his sense of having caused the pain. If a two-year-old child has empathy, and knows that he has caused the hurt, then guilt emerges as an emotion. Guilt, too, does not have to be taught. We are prepared to have a conscience.

As long as a person is not brain-damaged, he knows right from wrong and is capable of empathy at the age of two. The bad news is that experiences after childhood can dampen this ability. One can mute basic emotion. For instance, if one is rejected in love many times, it becomes harder to fall in love again. Life experiences can also blunt the capacity for empathy.

Piaget, a child psychologist, believed that an important stage of development occurs at about 6-7 years of age. As a result of maturation of the brain, a new set of abilities emerges. One of the most important of these is that the child can compare herself to others and understand that she is prettier, or smarter, less strong, or a better reader. A four-year-old child does not continually compare herself with the larger group. She may tell you – “I am so smart, ain’t I, mommy?” She will not say – I am smarter than Vanessa, ain’t I, mommy?”

When a person understands where he fits in the larger group, an important part of the self-concept grows. A child cannot know how smart he or she is without looking around at the other children in the classroom.

A final preparedness occurs at adolescence when youths can examine their beliefs as a whole and detect inconsistencies. If a set of beliefs is inconsistent, they become troubled. An eight year old boy can hold the following two beliefs and not feel uneasy: “My father is a wonderful man,” and “My father yells at my mother.” A 13-year old cannot help but sense the inconsistency and must resolve it.

The tensions and stresses of adolescence may have less to do with sex hormones than with the ability to recognize personal beliefs that don’t fit.

As a parent, you need to get to know your child, in particular. Knowing what he is capable of, you can have more realistic expectations of him.

To have realistic expectations requires that we recognize the unique strengths and vulnerabilities of our children and that we appreciate their capabilities. Many negative consequences occur when parents have unrealistic expectations for their children. When we place the bar too high for them, they are likely to feel pressure that often results in undesirable behaviors. I am not saying that we should do away with goals for our children. Rather, that we should continually examine whether what we expect of them is in keeping with what they can deliver. When it is not, we must modify our expectations so that problems will be minimized or prevented.

As parents, we must try to understand why our child is acting the way he or she is.

I have encountered well-meaning parents who punish a child because of misguided assumptions about his behavior. You must step back from time to time and ask yourself why your child is misbehaving.

Your four-year-old son may be exhibiting hyperactive behavior at bedtime because he is afraid of the dark. Your eight-year-old daughter may appear defiant to cover up for some anxiety – as was the case of a girl whose father was diagnosed with a mild case of skin cancer. She was terrified that her father was going to die soon.

To deal with your children better, it helps to know yourself and discover your own “discomfort zones”.

A friend of mine was distressed that her daughter was slow to speak. Her daughter was already two years old and still could not say a straight sentence. She brought her from one speech therapist to another, even after she was assured by her pediatrician that this was no cause for worry. The fact was -- this woman stuttered when she was young and she was afraid that her daughter would grow up to have the same problem.

Sometimes we impose on our children or ask them to do something not necessarily for their own welfare but to address a concern of our own.

The family therapist Cloe Madanes tells this story: Every morning, her husband Jay Haley, who was also a therapist, would drive their youngest daughter, Magali, to school. And every morning, as they would go out the door, Madanes would say, “Magali, take your jacket.” The child would answer that it was not cold. Her mother would insist that it was, and the discussion prolonged the moment of separation. Haley would patiently wait at the door until he would finally end the bantering between mother and daughter. Winking at Magali, he would say, “Your mother is cold today, Magali. You’d better take that jacket.” Magali would smile back, and dragging her jacket behind her, offer her cheek for her mother to kiss as she went out the door.

Part 2

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Raise-an-Independent-Child---Part-2