Encouraging a 3-Year Old’s Independence

Katherine, my 3-year old and I, raced to the playground like we do every Tuesday after preschool. She won. As usual.

I am one of those annoyingly-on-time people, so we were the first ones at the playground, and the other moms and kids would be pouring in momentarily for some brief sunshine before picking up big kids.

She ran off to the large playset, and because she was the only kid there, I was trying to figure out what my actual function was. We were apart for 4 whole hours while I worked, and I wanted to enjoy our few moments together.

But.

She was happily going down the slide, and there I stood, kind of creeping closer to her like a stalker wondering if I should interrupt her independent play or join in.

Listen, I love to join in. It’s important to join in, especially when we are one-on-one with our kids.

After all, we all have a very high need for attention, and providing just 15 minutes of special attention to our kids can pay dividends in less problematic behavior later.

But.

She is 3, and I am working on letting her have more independence. She had just shown me a sign that she was satisfied with me being nearby rather than in the game.

A part of me felt that familiar feeling of guilt lying to me, telling me that I need to be fully involved in everything she does to love her well. In fact, if I would have interrupted her playtime at that moment, I would have been meeting my need for her affection rather than the other way around.

Yes, we would have had a blast!

But.

If I intervened when she technically didn’t need me to, I would have subtly communicated to her that she can’t play without me. I, or someone else, must be present for her to play.

So I kept my creeper stance glued to that spot on the ground and enjoyed watching her be just a tiny bit independent.

Two minutes later, all of her friends were there, and she was as happy as a lark to run around playing freeze tag until it was time to go.

Of, course, later that afternoon we played “family” and read books and snuggled. Both of our attention buckets were filled for the next difficult moment.

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