Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This week I wanted to talk about how to help children build competence in an agency and how to help them overcome the no-you-do-it-for-me type of thing, which can be really tough, can't it? Before that, this is the last mention, actually, of the Discipline and Guidance Care Professionals coming up on May 3rd and 4th. It is, as I've mentioned, just a thing that I look forward to month after month.
We run these care professional trainings, gatherings of nurses and doctors and counsellors and educators and therapists of all kinds, and we gather together and look at one particular theme. And this time coming up on May 3rd and 4th is Discipline and Guidance, how to help the parents that we work with build better boundaries. It's three hours on Saturday, May 3rd, three hours on Sunday, May 4th.
And if you're watching this recording after that time, then you can still just put your name down on the interest list and we'll contact you. And also, lastly, if you're looking to go deeper, these care professional seminars, you do three of those, and they're on different themes of my books. And as I've mentioned, that then fulfills the requirements to become a simplicity parenting coach, that then you can have support, supervision after that, and so on.
So yeah, that's coming up. And if you know anyone who's interested in this, let them know. Anyway, on with the theme.
This theme of helping children develop agency, it's a tough one, because when children say, I can't do it, you help me, even older ones, come on, mom, do it, you can do it. You know, you get that kind of thing. My perspective on that is that we can come alongside kids, we can absolutely accompany them, we can help them in their figuring.
But it's really important that we don't swoop in and make a habit of always doing it for them. And it's a tricky one, because most of us know this. But it's become so ubiquitous, it's almost like a new normal, where we do things for kids.
And when I've asked parents why they do that, I was talking to a parent in a kindergarten playground just a couple of weeks ago. And we got talking about this. And she said, I frankly said, I got to admit, I do it because I've just got a lot of stuff to do.
And I'm busy and life's moving fast. And if I do it, it's just going to happen a lot quicker. And so it's very much got to do with the velocity that we're living our lives.
Because what she said, I've heard countless times, parents say, and I completely understand that it's just, you know, you're doing the dishes, and you hear that dreaded scrape of a stool across the floor, and they're coming to help, you know, that's going to take a lot longer, like a lot longer. But is it going to build connection? Yes. Is it going to mean those emails don't get answered until later? Yes.
Similarly, dressing children, you know, I think it's perfectly reasonable that they ask for help if they're young, if they're little. But it's also really important for their fine motor skills and their graphomotor skills, that they learn to button themselves, that they learn to do the zipper themselves, that they learn to do the big movements of putting on their t-shirt, or their pants, or their socks. And they, and the more they do this over and over and over, and it might be you have a little funny little game where you, you know, you help them just a little bit.
I remember with our children, I would pop my hand in the sleeve like a turtle, and they would bring their hand out to the, this is on a long sleeve sweater, and I'd pull their hand out, and yeah, that was the sweater turtle. But it was helping them, but it wasn't doing it for them. And I think this can be playfully done, but it's very important that if they are confronted with not being able to reach the branch of the tree to start their climbing, that you problem solve with them.
And it ends up with them going off and getting a stepladder, or getting a piece of lumber, or a big box, and they climb up, and they can get up on the tree. And the look of satisfaction that they figured this out, and I did this, for one little girl say, I did it all by my big self, mama, by my big self. And she was just so delighted.
That sense of agency, that sense of, I can affect my environment, builds a child's confidence. And it also builds their will, their willpower, their ability to fight, to come up against a problem, and not have us swoop in, and do it for them. And forgive me, I know this is somewhat obvious.
But the amount of times that we're tempted to move in and just get it done is, you know, almost endless through the day. But taking that extra minute or two, it doesn't take all that long to figure it out. If you were to set your clock by it, you know, if you were to time it, you know, you can just sit a child up on the branch and say, there you are.
And you can, and they've, and so they didn't have to problem solve to get up on that branch, sitting with them whilst you figure it out. And they figure, well, there's that big, that big box I could get up on. So they go and get the box, they haul it across, using all their strength.
And then they get up on the box, and then up onto the tree, it's probably going to take another three or four minutes or more. But that three or four minutes is priceless, in terms of them problem solving, because they're going into a world where there'll be less and less employment that is benefited, that is a secure, tenured, whatever job, more and more, we're told, employment will be self-employment, project based, it will be private practice, whatever it is, establishing your own small business. If we want our children to be successful in the future, we'll spend that extra couple of minutes while they haul the box across the grass, and get up in their own way.
Because that's what it's going to be needed to be successful later on. That's what it is, like owning a small business, a private practice, whatever it is, it takes a lot of problem solving, a lot of grit, a lot of determination, all these things children learn, and literally lay down these neural pathways when they're little. And if we can accompany them, now, I don't mean that there are not times where we just simply have to do it and get on, of course there are.
But if we can limit those times to when they're absolutely necessary, and the other times, take that two or three minutes, or however long, it might be longer, it might be shorter. But if we can take that time to let them problem solve, to let them come up against resistance, to get frustrated, to not be able to have it work out, rather than take the pencil right out of their hand and draw the drawing so it looks like a horse and not like a cow, because they're furious, it looks like a cow and not a horse. But if we can, if we can, you know, maybe take the pencil and just do one line, and say, you see the back goes this way, love, it goes, the neck arches that way, and then give them back the pencil, so that they can then, or the crayon, or whatever it is, so that they can then complete it, then we're doing our job.
If we can, if we can sort of help them overcome it, and we might do a little bit, or we might just accompany them in their problem solving. But wherever possible, and wherever reasonable, let them problem solve. Okay, that's it for now.
And I, as always, I hope that was helpful. Okay, bye-bye.
