Want to Raise "Confident" "Independent" Kids?
You will be surprised that independence is built not through detachment but through secure attachment and healthy interdependence
I want to start by dismantling something that I hear everywhere in Hong Kong parenting circles. It comes up at school gates and dinner tables and all too often in my therapy room. I get it, it comes from parents who are trying their very best to offer their kids the best start to life in the real world.
They carry this idea that the goal of successful parenting is raising independent children. Children who do not need us too much. Children who regulate themselves, manage their emotions on their own, and eventually launch into the world without looking back. I understand where this idea comes from. Yet,I want to offer you something different. Controversial as it may sound..
“The goal of emotional development is not independence. It is healthy interdependence. And the path there runs through connection and attachment”
What we mean when we say we want to raise “Confident” Kids
When most parents in Hong Kong tell me they want to raise a confident child, I always ask them to describe what that looks like. The answers are almost always the same.
A child who can walk into a room and feel comfortable in their own skin.
A child who can ask for help when they need it.
A child who can feel an uncomfortable emotion without falling apart or shutting down.
A child who can walk away from friendships and situations which do not feel “right”.
A child who trusts their own judgment, recovers from setbacks, and knows, somewhere deep inside them, that they are worthy of love.
That is not a description of independence. That is a description of secure attachment.
And here is what the research is absolutely clear about raising confident kids:
Inner security, that quiet settled confidence, is not built by teaching children to need us less. It is built by making sure they know, over and over, that we are reliably there. By being their safe haven they run to, and the secure base they launch from.
