Today’s children seem to have a never ending list of activities in their daily schedules. Often, we as parents make it our goal to provide our children with interesting things to do to keep them stimulated.
In an article at the Huffington Post, Dr Peggy Drexler points out how teaching and training our kids the importance of effectively utilizing quiet time and time alone plays an important part in their upbringing.
Give variation to activities
Excess stored energy is a hallmark of childhood. Children, especially boys seem to harbor a large amount of this potential energy that they need to use. Parents sometimes are too overly concerned with their child’s activities; which leads to them dictating their child’s structure of energy utilization.
Activities like camping, swimming, biking, hiking, and other lessons are certainly beneficial but a certain activity is often missed: the time to be alone. Try to insert some time for your child to explore and be by himself/herself.
Alone time may be structured or unstructured.
Independence through “alone time”
After spending some quality time with your child, allow or promote her/him to spend some time alone. Beforehand, inform your child what activities each member of the family will be doing while his/her alone time starts. This will also make your child understand that everybody has their own “alone time”.
Kids who know how to spend their time alone also develop self-sufficiency and creativity.
Avoid giving too much attention
Giving too much attention loses the essence of independence in your child’s development. Studies also show that parents who follow on all their children’s needs and activities tend to produce spoiled brats. This subsequently makes their children dependent on their parents with even the simplest problem-solving activities they encounter. Too much attention also leads to a misunderstanding of “alone time”
As an ending note, Drexler states how important it is for children to learn how to utilize their alone time. A child who knows the importance of alone time and how to use it also learns and appreciates the importance of socialization. In the same way parents must also understand that kids need their time alone. What’s your opinion?
Read the original article here.
