Letting Your Kids Make Mistakes Is Healthy

As children grow up, it is essential to reduce the number of interventions so that they can gain independence, strength and a good ability to make decisions and face all kinds of situations.

Parents often tend to overprotect their children. This is due to the belief that, with intervention, they can make things easier and offer a better quality of life for the little ones. However, letting your children make mistakes is healthy as it allows them to learn to take care of themselves and solve their own problems on their own.

Nobody is born taught, so it is important to make mistakes in order to grow. Every human being needs this process in order to build their own emotional well-being and, at the same time, develop various capacities.

It is true that parents often hesitate between when to intervene and when not to. The best thing you can do, in fact, is to try to maintain a balance. Parents should be mentors, counselors and supporters, not lifelong crutches that end up rendering children useless and destroying their self-esteem over time.

Inevitably there comes a time when a child cannot make a toy work, for example. Or maybe she can’t do a day-to-day task. So parents must learn to know how far to let children make mistakes and when it’s best to give some help. For many this can be difficult, but anything is possible when you become aware of the matter.

Autonomy

Two types of autonomy can be identified. One that has to do with physical development: motor skills and coordination capacity. The other has to do with the psychological aspect, which is the expression of desires, making decisions and understanding one’s actions. Children’s education contemplates this process of achieving autonomy in its broadest sense.

Encouraging autonomy is extremely important. It is necessary to train adults with life skills and strategies. These patterns are established during childhood.

Favoring children’s autonomy

One of the most obvious reasons why parents do not allow their children to make decisions is the fear that they will make mistakes. Nobody wants to see a child feeling bad. However, it is possible to fall into overprotection.

Another reason is that some parents can be controlling. They want the children to do everything exactly as the mother and father think is right. This happens for fear of criticism and even to avoid feelings of guilt if the child fails.

On the other hand, contemporary life is structured by routines of demanding times. Too much work and too little time to let children learn to do things for themselves. Learning takes time and patience, things that parents sometimes don’t have.

None of these justifications are valid. Letting your kids make mistakes is a must-have exercise for life. Parents have an obligation to understand how to effectively carry out this task.

How do you start letting your kids make mistakes?

The first thing is to be aware that when a child starts doing things for himself, he starts making mistakes. Then, naturally, frustration will come.

Frustration isn’t all bad. It is the opportunity to surpass yourself and set new goals. But these thoughts don’t come alone, adults have to inculcate in children.

Perseverance

When a child wants to help with a household chore, for example, it is good to accept their help. And, of course, encourage. If she makes a mistake, the ideal is to encourage her to try again. Starting over should be understood as something natural. This learning takes place through example. If parents are persevering and know how to deal with their own frustration, children will learn to do this too and will gain in happiness.

Patience

Probably, after a few tries, the child will start to cry. A parent’s first impulse may be to solve the problem so that the child stops crying. But another option that can help more is to sit down to talk with the child and give options on how to solve the problem.

reasonable goals

A child’s entire learning process goes through several steps. The goals to be achieved must be possible according to the abilities that the child has developed according to age. This ensures that the child will be able to meet some goals. And so your self-esteem will be reinforced and your childhood learning will be encouraged.

It is not valid to face challenges with the idea that “we are capable of everything”. Children have steps they must take. If they are over-demanded, they can get frustrated.

Homework is a good tool

Collaborating at home involves a series of positive values. Cooperation, integration and coexistence. Autonomy is also promoted and the child learns to know how to take care of himself in the future.

allow crying

Although it may seem desperate to see a child cry and it is very difficult to let your children make mistakes, it is necessary to understand that it is necessary to let children express frustration, fear and anger. There is no need to panic or repress.

You can always talk to them later to try to help channel the negative emotions and teach them how to move forward. Repressing crying is not a good strategy. Minimizing the moment children are going through doesn’t either.

The secret? Letting your children make mistakes to, little by little, become autonomous human beings capable of facing life alone.