Note: This child should be wearing a helmet. Enforcing basic safety rules is not micromanaging.
No child can truly learn how to ride a bike with training wheels on. But of course, when you remove the training wheels, there’s an immediate dip in performance: the child crashes.
We all know the proper response to this. We encourage them to get back on the bike and try again. Eventually, their brain figures out how to balance on two wheels. We don’t put the training wheels back on.
The same goes for pretty much every aspect of life a person needs to master. At the beginning, they need guidance and support, whether that’s a helping hand, instructions, or step-by-step management. But if they’re going to become independently capable, they have to be weaned off of the guidance and support. Otherwise, they’ll never learn to ride on their own.
Nowhere is this more true – or more difficult – than with executive function. Parents see their kids struggling with organization, time management, and impulse control, so they step in and assist. This is completely appropriate, but it usually gets taken too far and is done for too long.
- “Helping” turns into micromanaging or just doing it for them.
- When you see them about to fail, you jump in and rescue them.
- You support them like they’re children even as they become teenagers and young adults.
If that sounds familiar, it’s time to start letting go.
But what happens when you step back?
Probably, a significant dip in performance.
You’ve been doing too much for them, so they haven’t practiced doing things for themselves. Their mental muscles for executive function, willpower, and focus are underdeveloped. So of course their performance is going to dip.
More assignments will go unfinished. Test grades will be worse. They’ll forget to do their chores. They’ll be late to soccer practice. And so on.
Be ready for this. Expect it. And don’t rescue them! (Even though you’ll really want to.) They need to experience these failures and the natural consequences that come with them.
Don’t get outwardly upset or visibly emotional. Your kid needs to feel all of the emotions. The frustration, the embarrassment, the anger, the sadness – these will motivate them to figure it out, just as the pain of crashing your bike motivates you to learn how to balance.
Eventually, it gets better.
If the dip were all that happens, this would be a sad story. But the dip is not the end. It’s a necessary precursor to the growth that comes afterward.
Having to do more for themselves forces kids to grow up and become responsible. They develop the skills and strengths needed to succeed in school and in life. Micromanaging deprives them of that opportunity, stunting their growth. So unless you plan on doing everything for them forever, you have to start stepping back.
It will be hard. It will be uncomfortable. There will be a dip.
But eventually, it will get better.
The post What Happens When You Stop Micromanaging? appeared first on Northwest Educational Services.