A somewhat disturbing trend in suburban children is the inability to be left alone with their own thoughts in order to occupy themselves with imagination or physical toys. It’s disturbing because as someone who grew up in Generation X, we were frequently told after breakfast that we needed to go outside and play or take a bike ride around the neighborhood.
A slightly younger friend of mine had invited her mother to stay with them for a period of time and she noticed that every time her daughter went to the bathroom, both children would inevitably hunt their mother down just to know what she was doing. These were not infants or toddlers but rather the children were 8 and 10 years old. At this point in a child’s age, a mother surely can step away from the children long enough to go visit the toilet. So, she spoke firmly to her daughter and explained that children do not mature properly if they are always needing their mother to entertain them every moment of the day. It took a bit of training but thankfully, they started learning to leave their mother alone so that she could not only visit the toilet in peace but leave them along for short extended periods.
One of the difficulties with having children on the farm is that they must get to a point where they’re actually helping take tasks off of your shoulders so that you can be free to branch out and do projects that serve the family. If your children are constantly tagging along behind you, then you won’t be able to get things done properly.
I recently wrote an article about the importance of detoxing your children off the city life and that does go hand in hand with teaching them independence. We have created a method of training our children that is very effective and has allowed a wonderful transition for the family.
Whenever we have a task to teach our children, we bring the two oldest along and first show them ourselves how we properly do it without any room for misinterpretation. The second time the task gets done, we bring them back again but this time we get one child to do the task while the other watches. For the third time, we rotate jobs and the kid who watched before is up to bat with actually doing the task physically while the other supervises.
On the fourth time the task needs doing, we adults are there to simply observe that it is done properly and afterwards the task is officially given to the children to do. If the children have a moment of self-doubt, we will come alongside them and watch them but do not actually do the task for them. It serves no purpose to just snatch away a learning experience for a child because one does not have patience.
The children now have taken on the tasks of many projects and our middle child actually constructed a metal shed almost ninety percent by himself. Our children have evolved in such a way that we can even see the potential of their future careers due to their enjoyment of either physical labor or more mental tasks.
A good opportunity before you make your move from the city to the boonies is to start teaching the children to either read a book on their own or play with toys for a period of time. There are cheap kitchen timers you can get from the dollar store and use to build up their abilities to occupy themselves without needing you to hold their hand every second.
I remember reading a story of a mother who insisted that she get her spiritual time in, despite having multiple children in tow. The mother put the oldest child in charge, gave them a wood spoon and made clear that she was not to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. The mother then proceeded to go into her sitting area, pull her apron over her head, read her bible and have her quiet prayer time. If anyone disturbed the mother, she had her own wooden spoon and would dole out discipline as needed if any children disturbed her quiet time.
Independence is not only important for a child’s mental growth but to allow them to find their place on the farm when the time comes for the big move. I wish you luck in your endeavors and look forward to when you can join us other homesteaders in the boonies.
Suburban & Rural Homesteading Today 