What happens when we trust others? What happens when we trust our children and why is it so important.

I have written a lot about how I trust in my children's ability to learn, to self navigate. Because when I do so, I am allowing them to take responsibility for themselves. How often do we step in, because of our own ingrained fears, take for example when it comes to judging risk. We doubt that our children will know what to do, as though they are born with no natural instinct to survive.

I am not saying to leave them unsupervised in such a situation, but instead to take a step back and let them discover the risks and the best way to proceed, you can intervene if needs be, but you may very well be surprised by the way in which the can handle themselves.

Our doubt only causes them to doubt themselves.

Trusting your children, gives them so much confidence and really allows them to then trust themselves. My girls go to a homeschooling meet up twice a week, it is situated in the mountains, in such wild settings. There are always 2 or more facilitators there, where they can explore freely and have the opportunity to learn how to build, to make art and to create music. They are responsible for themselves at all times and because of that they take care of themselves and one another.

When these meet ups began, all the kids explored the land and marked our areas that were dangerous and thus no go areas. The also came up with a rule that no one was to ever wander off by themselves, and if pairs or groups did leave the main space then they had to take a walkie talkie with them. These 'rules' all came from them, no adults were involved and the decision was unanimous.

We all wish to be trusted by others and our children are no different. If you wish your children to behave in a trustworthy manner, then you have to first trust them.

In today's society we tend to place so many expectations on our children. But these expectations are really a way in which we can assert control over them. It is the complete opposite of Trust. Trust is about a show of confidence, it is all about believing in them and giving them the freedom to discover who they are and what it is they wish to achieve in this world.

It is no easy thing though, I still struggle with it, because we tend to react just as our parents did. But the beautiful part of it is that we can change, we can break these behaviours. When I realized that my over eagerness to educate my girls, translated as mistrust and contempt on their ability to learn for themselves, I knew I had to change my ways.

I have John Holt to thank for that one and his amazing book 'Learning All The Time'. My eagerness to each teach them, was really telling them that they needed to be taught in order to learn and that I am far superior and smarter than they are. This goes against all that I believed in.

Children are really good at picking up on emotional messages, they see things a lot clearer than us. I still have to bite my tongue at times, to stop myself from interfering. It doesn't help that we like to teach others, but now, now I have to refrain from teaching unless I am asked. And they do ask me when they need to and I delight in seeing the joy in their faces when they teach themselves.

Trust is powerful and placing trust in your children allows them the freedom to grow and discover, to see how capable they really are. So Imagine if we all grew up knowing what we are capable of!

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