Difference Between Autonomy and Self-Efficacy

The difference between autonomy and self-efficacy is autonomy is the desire to do something for oneself and self-efficacy is the ability and willingness to try a task. Self-efficacy means that people are more likely to participate in behaviors and be more successful at them when they believe they are capable of accomplishing behaviors of a task successfully. This is why it's important to allow a child to try things on their own because even if they aren't successful, they then know it may be something they may not be good at but it also helps them learn what they are capable of doing.

For example, for a few years my child took piano lessons. She was good at but it wasn't something she really enjoyed and she didn't like doing recitals and having to speak in front of people to tell them what songs she was going to play. The area of arts she likes is painting, drawing etc so instead of continuing her piano lessons she focused on art classes and developing her talent in drawing and painting etc which she is really good at.

This let her know she was good at playing the piano but it wasn't something she was particularly interested in and let her know there was something else she was more interested in and more talented in so it was her talent in drawing etc that was developed instead.

Ways to Recognize A Child's Struggle For Autonomy Part 2

The second way to recognize a child's struggle to develop autonomy is to learn best practices for supporting the development of autonomy in children. A way to do this is to give children opportunities to do things by themselves. For example, when my child wanted to poor the milk on her cereal, I allowed her to do this yet guided the milk carton so that she didn't spill. The milk carton was also too heavy for her so by guiding the carton I also helped her be able to hold it. When a parent does this a parent is teaching their child they can do anything for themselves and the parent is taking the time to teach the child they can do anything for themselves and the parent is taking the time to teach them even though yet it would be less messy and take less time to do it yourself.

The third way to recognize a child's struggle for autonomy is for parents to learn how to communicate in order to learn how to support the development of autonomy in their children. A parent can do this by letting children have a choice in the chores they have. For example, my child liked to help me vacuum the stairs, however, she was too young to use the vacuum and to use that kind of machine. So, I went and bought her a toy vacuum and let her use that. She 'vacuumed' the stairs using her toy vacuum and I went behind her using the actual vacuum and this allowed her to vacuum the stairs and gave her the opportunity to see that she could do it and by herself.

A parent's major task in developing autonomy is to help children be safe and learn appropriate social skills and behaviors without using discipline to be mean or shameful. A parent should be encouraging  their children to do something, not making them feel bad because they can't do something. A parent shouldn't be telling a child how the way they're doing a task is wrong, a parent should be letting the child figure it out themselves and showing them and teaching them how to do something, not doing it for them and not telling them that how they do it is wrong. A parent should be building a child's autonomy not destroying it/ For a parent a major task in developing autonomy is teaching their children the skills and behaviors they need to be safe and to get along in the world.

Ways to Recognize A Child's Struggle For Autonomy

There are different ways to recognize a child's struggle for autonomy. One of the ways to recognize it is to support a child in developing autonomy by providing training, resources, modeling and supervision as children develop autonomy. A parent provides training and resources for developing autonomy as a child tells the parent they want to learn how to cook brownies and the parent gets the ingredients and teaches them how to make brownies.

A parent models the development of autonomy as they learn new things and their children see them putting effort into learning new things. A parent provides supervision to children as they develop autonomy as they don't let children use the oven to make brownies until they are old enough to.

I recognized my child's struggle for autonomy and used these methods to develop her autonomy. For example, when she was about ten years old I was doing the laundry and she asked me how to do the laundry. So I taught her how to do the laundry. I explained what I had already done as far as sorting between colors and whites and putting them in the laundry machine. I then explained each step as I was doing it. When it was time to put the next load in she wanted to do it. I recognized my child's struggle for autonomy by recognizing she wanted to learn how to do the laundry and teaching her how to. I used supervision with this as well as the first few times she did the laundry by herself I supervised her doing it so that it was done correctly. I didn't do it for her I supervised it and walked her through how to do it.

I used modeling to teach my child how to be autonomous because she was still young when I put myself through school and she saw my apply myself to finish school. She also saw me try new recipes for cooking as I came up with different meals for us to eat.

It's important for a parent to understand that the reason for developing autonomy is so that the child will develop positive self-esteem and so that children learn the skills the activity will teach them (i.e. how to do the laundry). Children need to know they can succeed at activities they do instead of learning they are dependent on their parents. Therefore, it's important that parents are not telling children they can't do something and continue to do everything for them and not give them the chance and opportunity to develop the ability to do things for themselves.

Developing Autonomy In Toddler's

To be autonomous a child need to be more interested in being independent and self-directed. They need to start choosing for themselves, what to play with, what they like and what they dislike. For toddlers, autonomy is about discovering a sense of self and who they are. When a child is attempting autonomy, adult interactions with children must be characterized by warmth, flexibility, respect and an understanding that children need to feel a sense of control most of the time.

This means when a child is doing something, they need encouragement to do whatever task they are trying to do. They need to know parents think they can do it and feel their parents believe in them. A parent needs to be respectful and encourage children and allow them to try, if not do the task themselves. To not allow children to try or do an activity on their own is disrespectful because it hurts their sense of self, tells them they are not capable of doing something and that they are not important enough to take the time to let them try to do it themselves because you are always in such a rush that mom/dad need to do it. A parent is telling a child they cannot do something. Giving children encouragement and finding time to allow them to do it and respecting them enough to let them do it, provides them with the sense of control that they need and they have control over what is happening to them and what they can do.

I developed autonomy in my child at this age by allowing her to pick out what shirt she wore with her pants, I would pick the pants and two shirts she could choose from or I would lay out a dress and an outfit for her to choose from. One of the hardest things I let her do at this age is learn how to drink from a cup by herself. I always wanted to do it for her and I would have nail prints in my hands from clutching my hands so hard to stop me from doing it for her. Did she make a mess, sure. But I would rather clean up the mess she made and let her learn how to do it than not allow her to learn a skill that was appropriate she learn and milestone she needed to hit. It was the same with teaching her how to put her coat on at this age. I would lay it on the floor with the hood facing her and taught her to put her arms in and throw the coat over her head to put it on.As she was just learning it took a few minutes and tries for her to do it but she learned how to put her coat on by herself.

Teaching autonomy is hard and frustrating but also awarding as your child starts to do things on their own and you see in their face the look of accomplishment.

Play and the Development of Initiative

Another part of developing initiative is play. Mildred Parten was a sociologist at the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development. She developed six stages of social play which are: onlooker play which is  when children watch other children play but do not join in the play themselves, solitary play which is when children play alone, parallel play which is when children are playing side by side with one another but still focusing on themselves and what they're playing with, cooperative play which is when children will engage in activities with other children where they fully cooperate with one another and use roles and scripts and imaginative play which is when children make a shift in the way they view the world and learn to explore new concept skills and emotions.

In order for children to progress through the different play stages, a child needs to work through Erik Erikson's  stage of initiative vs. guilt. This stage is when a child either takes initiative to complete a task or feels guilty for doing it. For example, if a child gets a good grade on a spelling test and their best friend failed it, the child needs to work through this stage of being proud of themselves for taking the initiative to study and being prepared for it, rather than feeling guilty that they did well and their best friend didn't. Children need to understand they have nothing to feel guilty of. This is hard for a child to understand and to get over and it takes a long time, sometimes into adulthood for them to understand and work through the feelings of guilt they have.

When I was raising my child I had to help her work through this stage and even now that she's in college she still at times has to work through it again. When she was in preschool there was a lady who came from a dance studio to her preschool and gave children who enrolled dance lessons. She came twice a week and in the spring they put on a performance. My daughter showed talent in this dance class but there was someone in her class who saw this and was jealous of it and would say rude things about my daughter and her ability to dance. I had to help my daughter understand that it came from jealousy and a little bit of her being intimidated by my child's talent. I had to help her understand she didn't need to feel bad about being good at something or being better at something than someone else. I had to teach her that we all have things we're good at and bad at and that the child who was jealous of my child's talent in dance was probably better than my daughter at something but that didn't mean my child needed to feel badly about that.

A child who has developed a good sense of autonomy will understand they have done nothing wrong or to feel guilty of when they find they have done a task better than someone else. They took the initiative their friend or peer didn't and it paid off for them and there is nothing to feel guilty for about that. Developing initiative in a child is tricky and can be a harder task of parenthood. As parents allow their children to learn new things and give them opportunities to try new things and believe in their child's ability to achieve a goal makes establishing initiative in children easier. It starts small with children feeding themselves to learning to tie shoes to learning how to prioritize assignments and it's important children reach each goal of taking initiative.