Watch This Young Girl Guide Her Family Through The Airport With Ease
What happens when we give them the chance to spread their wings and try things on their own?
A friend recently asked me if I ever look at my kids and think, “You would never survive out in the wild?”
I quickly laughed and replied, “I’ve looked at my children and thought they wouldn’t have survived the early-’90s.” It’s not that they’re completely incapable, but my kids are privileged and sheltered, and while they’re not entirely helpless they know they can rely on their dad and me to help them get through just about anything.
And that’s the way it should be at their ages. But sometimes I wonder how I can help teach them the best ways to fend for themselves, maybe not in the literal wild but in the wilds of the “real world.”
Instagram creator Janssen Bradshaw (@everydayreading) recently shared a video of how she helps encourage life skills, independence, and confidence in her 11-year-old daughter: by throwing her into the deep end of an airport.
“Last summer we challenged our 11-year-old to navigate us from the car to our airline gate,” she begins. While the family had been to plenty of airports, their daughter had never been in charge of knowing where to go and simply followed her parents as I’m sure, is the case with most families with kids.
As you can imagine, she wasn’t exactly sure what signs to follow, where to go, or in what order. I can only imagine my children — both around Bradshaw’s daughter’s age — in a situation like that. I have no doubt it would only be a matter of time before one or both of them got bored with the task at hand and decided to ride the luggage carousel.
“The good news is that we were there to answer all of her questions or make suggestions to help her get on the right track,” Bradshaw adds.
Ultimately, all went well. So well, in fact, that when the family returned to the airport later that year the daughter was “thrilled to show off her skills and very confident.”
This is such a simple strategy but one I’d a) never thought to employ and b) one I want to try in the future... assuming we’re not rushing to make a flight, of course.
It can be hard to get out of “caregiver/parent” mode with your child — to this day I’ll sometimes try to brush my 10-year-old’s hair for them when I get into autopilot “get ready for school” mode. I forget, temporarily, that they are very capable of taking care of themselves.
So what else are they capable of that they just haven’t had the opportunity to try yet?
Creating safe independent experiments like this might not always be convenient, but trying to incorporate them more into everyday situations is a great way to help your children learn the skills they need to survive in the wild.
