Reminder to Self: Self-Determination is the Goal

My youngest of four, and only daughter, turns 18 today, which I guess officially makes my wife and I “childless” and instead the proud parents of four young adults.  Like most parents we still worry about our “kids” no matter what their age. We certainly aren’t perfect parents, but I thought we have done a pretty good job of raising young people who will give back to society.  However, I am in the middle of reading “The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives.” by William Stixrud &  Ned Johnson and although we are aligned to much of what I read, there have been parts of the book that made me say, “Why didn’t I think of that when our kids were growing up?”  As a matter of fact, “The Self-Driven Child” is a great read for any parent or educator, because much of what we want to see in our kids are some of the same skills we strive to nurture with young people in our classroom.  One of the most impactful of these for our classroom as well as life outside of the four walls of school is self-determination.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have cringed  so much when we asked our daughter what she wanted for her birthday and she dead-panned, “My freedom.”  Ouch, talk about a dagger to the heart. I guess that was a loaded question for a parent to ask a teenager who has a midnight curfew she doesn’t like. My mind immediately went to a sign that I had hanging in my classroom which read:

TEENAGERS Tired of being harassed by your parents? ACT NOW! Move out, get a job, & pay your own way QUICK! While you still know everything.

The young people who read it always laughed, because it does carry with it a bit of truth.  However, if self-determination is an important skill for our young people to develop, and it is, then we should be alright with loosening the reins as educators and (reluctantly) as parents too.

In Raising Young People as Human Beings vs. Manufacturing Machines  I stressed our goal as educators should not be to raise test scores, but to help raise human beings.  Self-determination is an important part of being human and with it comes three basic needs:

+A sense of Autonomy

+A sense of competence

+A sense of relatedness

All three of these “human needs” are not only factors to consider when raising a child, but also when raising human beings in our classrooms.  Autonomy is the most important of the three for developing internal motivation in a young person, or an adult for that matter, because it promotes a sense of self control  (Stixrud & Johnson, 2018). This is part of the push for more “choice and voice” in the classroom, but it goes even further because the more we design our classroom environments with autonomy in mind, the more we will catalyze internal motivation and the less we will need to rely on external motivation in the form of sticks and carrots (Grades, as an example, fulfill both of these roles.).  “Competence is more about our feeling that we can handle a situation than it is about really being great at something” (Stixrud & Johnson, 2018, p.110). We, as educators and parents, often focus on the narrow definition of competence in the form of “competent” or performance/reaching a goal. However, that narrow focus doesn’t address the importance of the journey to reach that goal of high performance which is fueled by internal motivation through growth and therefore the development of competence..  The last basic need, relatedness, address the sense of being connected. In our classrooms, we often refer to having a good rapport with students. However, I believe educators who have that ability to seemingly get young people to “run through a wall for them” have not just developed a rapport, but have a classroom culture which nurtures this connection that meets young people’s need for relatedness. This connection helps to contribute to an environment of strong trust, low stress, and high willingness to take risks.

Developing self-determination is an important part of parenting and educating.  We, as adults, should celebrate as the young people in our lives make more connections, develop competence, and yes even (and most importantly) have a strong sense of autonomy.  A friend of mine has said, “Don’t you love them enough to make the hard decisions as they grow up, so that you don’t enable them?” A lot of hard decisions are made when nurturing an environment that promotes self-determination.  However, if the goal is to develop young people that are prepared for life, then I believe it is not only the best step at home for a parent, but it is also a necessity for educators in our schools.

Wish me good luck...I think I hear my daughter waking up.  :)

References

Stixrud, William & Johnson, Ned  (2018). The Self-Driven Child: The Science and

Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives.  New York, NY.

Penguin Random House LLC.