Using Prompts that Teach Independence

Do we give too many cues to children?

Adults tend to give direct cues to children for basic routine things that they should be doing independently. For example, when families are getting their child ready to go to school you’ll hear: “Get your shoes.” “Get your backpack.” “Get your lunch.”  If you tell a child each step of a task each time, are they going to learn to do it on their own? Probably not as quickly as you want them to. I even had to suggest to my former husband that he stop doing this for his daughter who was in high school! Why? Because she was constantly being cued for all of these things over the years and she was constantly forgetting things when he wasn’t there to remind her! That was tough for me as an occupational therapist whose entire career is focused on helping people be as independent as possible. And as an advocate for children I think it’s important that everyone encourage independence. 

How can we support children while fostering age appropriate independence without always telling them what to do?

Ask questions

Instead of direct commands you can ask questions. For example, if you give directions to a child to get their writing notebook, and a child does not seem to be doing that, ask, “What are you supposed to be doing right now?” You could say, “get your writing notebook” but you’ll set yourself up for potentially always having to repeat directions to them. They didn’t have to pay attention when you gave directions the first time because they know you’ll tell them what to do so there is no accountability for that. (Granted, repeating directions is sometimes a good accommodation in schools for children with language delays and ADHD, but it doesn’t mean you can’t start asking them before you repeat directions to see if they caught any of it.) Commands can help a child get something done, but asking a question can turn on a “light switch” for them so they are thinking about what they are doing. This will help internalize their ability to learn routines and focus. 

Use Declarative Language

I only just starting reading the book, The Declarative Language Handbook by Linda K. Murphy, so I can’t go into great detail about the strategies described in it, but the general concept takes things a step further than just asking a question by helping children to focus on environmental cues as well. For example, in the example about getting ready in the morning you may say, “I wonder what we still need to do to get ready for school” or “I see you have your socks already. Do you know where your shoes are?”

I recently had a discussion with someone who I thought could benefit from having these strategies in her parenting toolbox. She explained that her daughter would linger in the tub for a long time in the evening. Direct cues to finish up her bath so she could participate in fun family activities before bedtime were unsuccessful. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to use declarative language. Saying something like, “I notice there is only 30 minutes left before bedtime. I’ll go get the game out for us to play so we have time before bed” may help that child feel autonomous in making the decision to finish up the bath while taking some stress off of the parent to try to get her child to comply with what she wanted her to do.

I am looking forward to finishing the book and may return to update this blog when I’m done. It’s a pretty easy read and available in audiobook format. 

Cueing in a different way takes practice and there are times it likely won’t be feasible if you aren’t used to it, like when you are racing out the door so you aren’t late. But gradually changing the prompts you use can set children up for success and more independence, and adults up for less frustration.