Supporting Autonomy

11/16/2017

If you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.
Alice Walker, American novelist

In a New York Times article, Madeline Levine describes two research studies on parenting styles, one by Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist at the University of California-Berkeley and one by Carol Dweck, a social and developmental psychologist at Stanford University. As Levine explains, both studies lead to the conclusion that:

"The happiest, most successful children have parents who do not do for them what they are capable of doing, or almost capable of doing...

"The central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is autonomous, confident and generally in accord with reality. If you treat your walking toddler as if she can’t walk, you diminish her confidence and distort reality. Ditto nightly 'reviews' of homework, repetitive phone calls to 'just check if you’re O.K.' and ‘editing’ (read: writing) your child’s college application essay."

Source: "Raising Successful Children," by Madeline Levine, The New York Times, August 4, 2012

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