By: Fadheela Hammad
She saw a timid and reluctant look on her nephew's face that morning, following a fun slumber party her younger son threw the both of them. Salem was hesitant as he watched his cousin prepare a sandwich for breakfast. She asked him if something was wrong. "Not at all" he answered, trying to imitate his cousin in preparing a similar meal. He was not accustomed to that, and kept asking himself why is his cousin preparing his food in the presence of his mother?!
Parents must make every effort to develop self-reliance as a basic skill within their children. This could be achieved through a number of ways, for instance, children could be encouraged to contribute to small chores that are consistent with their age and level of maturity. Further, children can be requested to assume responsibility of smile tasks like tidying their rooms, their closets, their school bags or preparing simple meals for themselves.
Few children are willing to rely on themselves to complete basic chores that are in commensuration with their age and abilities. The majority tend to heavily depend on others to fulfill their needs like parents or domestic workers. These children become increasingly unaware of their skills and abilities and consequently neglect the opportunity to develop them. Additionally, such children develop dependant personalities that tend to struggle with accomplishing tasks. Parents are well positioned to play an important role in the nurturing children to be self-reliant by allowing them the experiment with various tasks even if the results were far from perfect. Another way can be the assignment of simple tasks to the child as he grows to give him a sense of value, importance and achievement in addition to showing him his ability to help and contribute.
A child who is able to rely on himself and gradually accepts responsibility for variant tasks becomes equipped to act in times of crisis and challenging situations. This, however, is not always the case with a child who depends on others to manage his affairs.
At times children leave food remnants, dirty clothes or school books on the ground rather than placing them where they belong, assuming that such tasks are meant to be completed by adults when this is not the case. Parents have a unique opportunity to instill self-reliance in their children through daily practices and small random events, they can encourage their children to assume new tasks and motivate them to complete them, especially when the child is unfamiliar with the task at hand.
Self –reliance in children carries a positive impact on their personalities in terms of developing a sense of responsibility. It also establishes a platform to experiment and attempt to acquire new skills including self-reliance in order to achieve confidence and install independence inside them. This would be particularly helpful when parents are not able to monitor their children at any given setting, whether the child is not accompanied by family, at school or in a social visit for example. Furthermore, mastering the skill of self-reliance would spare the child embarrassing when put in situations that require his engagement , this is especially true when the child finds himself alone and unable to perform a simple task because he became very much accustomed to relying on others to manage his affairs.
Encouraging children to rely on themselves, and assume responsibility is an essential and important task that significantly contributes to the construction of an independent person. On a wider scale it contributes to the formation of a strong and self-reliant generation that will reap the fruits of such a skill in the present and the future.
