Inculcating an independent spirit in your Child

    I have been waking up feeling sick and stressed for months now without a known cause, I wake up


with this feeling of heaviness in my head like I don't sleep at  night even though  I sleep for 6-7 hours straight. I thought it was just a feeling and will go away after a while but instead it intensified so because of this I had to go to the hospital to see a Doctor. The end result was that I'm stressed and in need of  rest, the Doctor went on to ask me if I have kids and how old they are, on telling her she  started mentoring me on how I have to make my children more independent if I need to improve on my health, and so I feel I need to share some of her opinions with you all. I am a type of person that loves a job to be  well done especially when it come to house chores "a perfectionist so to speak" I can go on and on and not rest yet still run through the children's home work and at the end of the day i end up tired and fagged out. This has been a routine for me for so long that I didn't know it was beginning to affect my health. 

   The Doctor says:many parents cope with the time crunch by using a “parenting to get through the day” approach: They worry about what needs to be done in the here and now, not about the long-term effects of these daily choices. I could go so far as to say that all parents do this at some point, unfortunately we need to understand that Habitually doing things for our child who is capable of doing them herself sends an inadvertent message that you don’t have confidence in her abilities, so the outcome is a child who lacks independence, self-esteem and problem-solving skills and who can’t—or won’t—do age-appropriate tasks. This is sometimes called “learned helplessness.” Learned from whom? You guessed it. We were raised like this, where we had Uncles and Aunties living with our parents and helping within the house, this has given rise to a lot of us not being able to think outside the box and rather be self made. That spirit of independent has to be inculcated in a child as early as 4years old let them know you depend on them to,get their teeth brushed by themselves, have their bath themselves, clear their table themselves and do more simple chores as they get older. Lack of independence can give birth to a lot of other bad character when the kids are more grown. 

   This brings to mind the case of Linda Ikeji and her Banana Island story...Lol ( my husband can't get his mind off it) :  she started early, while a lot of us were thinking of finishing school and getting a job sitting in the air conditioned office and sipping on some coffee, Linda was busy seeking for more, hungry for more. That is an independent spirit and it starts with us teaching our kids as early as possible. The new age parents have to be dynamic when it comes to raising kids. "You need to forget about perfection, don't worry it will get better as time goes on" so the Doctor says. So tell us, how do you do it?  How do you encourage your kids?  Meanwhile excuse me while I engage my 8 year old with some more chores ( don't wanna die young...Lol) Ciao!