Positive Discipline: The importance of children's autonomy

Children need to feel a sense of autonomy, that they have their own autonomy. Erik Erikson, a well-known psychologist, believed that it is essential that parents give their children the opportunity to make sense of what they are doing and that this be stronger than feelings of shame or doubt. Then and only then will children be confident enough to initiate and shape their own ideas and plans.

Erikson advised building trust in the first year and fostering a sense of autonomy in the second and third years of young children’s lives. Positive discipline comes into play without the need for punishment. Positive discipline teaches children autonomy and is based on teaching and understanding what is developmentally appropriate for children depending on their evolutionary age .

Parents often believe that young children engage in defiant behavior, intentionally misbehave, or worse yet, try to cross boundaries against their parents when they really feel like it. overwhelmed by their own developmental needs in search of exploration and adventure.Understanding this will help you react appropriately, so it generally means that abstract concepts for children like the Repeated ‘no’ or making noises to make him stop acting is useless and also inappropriate.

What is the sense of autonomy in children

Having a sense of autonomy does not mean that the child has to do only what he is told you like or what you feel like at home… the decision-making should be up to the parents since they are their guides because autonomy does not mean permissiveness.

The feeling of autonomy is that the child must feel able to explore freely within the safety limits established by the parents. Children often have too many incorrect options and parents place the position of responsibility on the little ones and ask for answers about things that only adults bear responsibility, creating anxious and insecure children.

Children's Autonomy

To enhance children’s autonomy, they should be allowed explore in an environment that is free from danger. This requires that the family home be ‘childproofed’ so that they can explore, test what they can do and thus develop activities on their own. If you do not want your child to break things at home, just take them out of his reach, but don’t scold him if he does and you put him out of his reach first.

A child with too many limits within his home will lose the opportunity to develop a sense of autonomy. Many parents put children in a playground as soon as they start to move to prevent them from hurting themselves or breaking things in an adult-only space.

The side effects of a lack of autonomy

When autonomy and power are not worked on in children, it can have secondary effects on their development. When autonomy is not enhanced in young children, it is synonymous with a lack of intellectual stimulation and this could be an impediment to the development of the brain and its muscles, the combination of both being so essential in the first three years.

The promotion of autonomy helps to develop the necessary skills when the parents are not present, the child will also learn what is safe from what is not. This, of course, is very Difficult for parents who do not work on time and patience first, as these two aspects are key to developing good positive discipline.

Patience and time must be had in large quantities since they are prerequisites , along with having a childproof home. If this is so, the child will develop a false sense of the world and a distorted sense of her ability to live in it.