Let Go Often: How Do I Teach My Child Self-Actualization?

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, NJ: The three words I use to guide my martial arts program are discipline, awareness and organization.

Perhaps I should put the word *self* in front of each of them.

Self-discipline.

Self-awareness.

Self-organization.

It just doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well.

But ultimately, that's where I want those qualities to lead.

I don't want students to remain dependent upon a teacher constantly telling them what to do, what to notice and how to behave. I want them to gradually become capable of doing those things for themselves.

In that sense, I want my students moving toward self-actualization.

Raising Independent Children Is Like Building a House of Cards

Teaching someone to become increasingly independent takes time, discipline, awareness and organization.

It's a little like building a house of cards.

At first, you need your hands to hold everything in place.

You're carefully positioning the cards, providing support and preventing everything from falling apart while the structure begins to take shape.

But eventually, you have to let go.

That's the scary part.

Sometimes You Let Go and Everything Falls Down

Sometimes you're rewarded.

You remove your hands and the cards remain standing all by themselves.

Sometimes they don't.

Everything comes crashing down.

And the builder is reminded of the never-ending lesson that one can never have enough patience or self-discipline.

Children may understand the destination we have in mind for them.

They rarely know how the journey will unfold.

Neither, for that matter, do we.

Independence Requires a Foundation of Trust

Once the student and teacher, or the child and parent, have successfully built a foundation of trust, it's time to repeat the process.

Except this time, it needs to be a little more difficult.

Another layer needs to be added.

The challenge should be enough to test the foundation without deliberately overwhelming it.

Then we see what happens.

If everything holds, we share in the joy of success.

Another lesson learned.

If some or all of it crumbles, we share in the disappointment of failure.

But there's a lesson there too.

Patience.

Perseverance.

Adaptation.

And then we build again.

Children Need the Opportunity to Stand Without Us

This is where letting go becomes important.

If my hands remain on the cards forever, I'll never know whether the structure can stand without them.

Neither will the child.

There is no real opportunity for independence if someone else is constantly holding everything together.

Parents and teachers naturally want to protect children from falling.

Sometimes that's exactly what we should do.

But sometimes our job is to create an environment where they can safely wobble, struggle, fail, rebuild and eventually discover that they can stand on their own.

The Goal Isn't to Become Unnecessary Overnight

Letting go doesn't mean abandoning responsibility.

It doesn't mean removing every boundary or allowing children to struggle with situations they're not prepared to handle.

It means gradually transferring responsibility as their ability to handle that responsibility grows.

First we demonstrate.

Then we guide.

Then we supervise.

Then we step back.

And eventually, they do it without us.

Eventually, We Have to Let Go

If the hands remain on the cards forever, there is no opportunity for freedom and growth.

There is no chance to discover how strong the foundation actually is.

But if the hands are slowly removed, with the indentations of the cards still fresh on the fingertips, something remarkable can happen.

The structure remains standing.

And perhaps the greatest accomplishment isn't that we built it.

It's that it no longer needs our hands to hold it up.