Respect your child’s needs to be independent
Today, I helped to babysit my friend’s 20 months old son for a couple of hours. We went out lunch together and I brought him along when I went for grocery shopping. There were more than one stranger commented how good he was at the coffee shop and at the grocery store. When we were at the coffee shop having lunch. They have one of those espresso machines at the coffee shop and the boy was obviously intrigued by it.
The woman sat next to us was screaming and her two toddlers were also screaming. She was busy stopping her children from everything that they attempted to do, i.e. the girl who looked like 3-4 years old was trying to use the fork, and she kept saying “no, no, no…” . She wanted to feed the children and they wanted to eat by themselves, you can see the struggles to be independent and the struggle of the mother to keep things under control
Actually I saw this too often when I ate out, sometime I even saw 7-8 years old children were being fed instead of eating by themselves. Many parents do not realize that children have the needs to be independent. This is really an opportunity to guide them to independence, you indirectly acknowledge and respect their needs when you do so. In the process of helping them to learn new skills, you unknowingly help them to be motivated by their joy of learning a new skill rather than the need for external validation.
What I did with my friend’s son was: I just gave him a few toufu cubes, fish balls and a few pieces of carrot in a bowl, and he can eat them all by himself while I enjoyed my lunch. He didn’t know how to use the fork and spoon, so he just use his fingers. Yes, he may dirty his fingers, but then you can show him how to wash hands, later.
Young children has strong desires and needs to “do it myself”, as adults, our role is to show them how to do it themselves. I understand the need to stay control and the mess it may create by letting them eat by themselves, but then they are good learning opportunities, what a waste to scream your head off to stop them.
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