Why Children Need Their Agency to Grow

Recently, I took care of a little 4-year-old girl for a couple of weeks. She’s the daughter of a young woman I taught in church, who is now 32 and a mom. She has been a close family friend since she was twelve years old.  She and her daughter are staying with us for a few months until she gets back on her feet. In many ways, I feel like I’m playing the grandma role. My interactions with her are definitely more grandma in nature than the mom I used to be when I had kids that age. As I reflect upon the changes in my temperament and abilities, I'm coming to the conclusion that my younger motherhood years were training years. I was like an apprentice. Having seen the journey of a child from birth to young adulthood, I have a more complete perspective of the different stages she goes through. And that gives me greater faith when dealing with fleeting misbehaviors. I know the behaviors won't endure and I also know that my own response to them plays a huge role in my own ability to bear them as well as in teaching the child by example how parents paradoxically sacrifice for their children. After many years of being away from that very difficult training period in my life, I am thankful for the experience and personal guidance from my Savior which have given me greater understanding of the relationship between a parent and a child and the natural conflicts that arise.

I've always loved the scripture in Isaiah that describes the learning process as "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little." Here is the exact scripture:

"Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine?...For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." ~Isaiah 28:9-10

My own parents weren't always patience with me as a child. They had their own struggles and were still trying to work them out as do most parents. Consequently, patience was not one of my strengths upon entering my own parent-apprenticeship. However, because I wanted so badly to be patient, I turned to God and asked him to teach me how. He has answered my prayers. He taught me precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little. Over the course of many years, I've had to learn how to be patient with myself, knowing He is being patient with me. Now that I am nearing the grandma years, I do indeed have more patience.

In taking care of my friend's 4-year-old daughter, I’ve been watching myself to assess the reason I’m responding to her so patiently. I’ve noticed that I now have an overall rule governing my thoughts and actions to strive as much as possible to honor her agency - her right to choose for herself. There are a number of family/home/safety rules she must keep but if her choice to do something doesn’t break one of those rules, I allow her to continue doing it.  While I'm in charge of her, if she doesn’t want to eat all her food, she doesn’t have to. If she doesn’t like something I give her, she doesn’t have to eat it. If she wants a band-aid or a piece of gum, why not?  If she wants to sit on my lap, hop on. If she wants to get down and do something else, off you go. If she is curious about something in my office, if it is safe, let her see it and handle it. I answer her questions about it but don’t go overboard with the answer. I tell her what she wants to know. She determines how much that is. If she wants to use the Swiffer to help me sweep the floor, go for it. If she wants to take the mop from me and do it herself, okay. No reason to stifle the desire to clean when it’s actually there. 

The following song emphasizes this governing rule to allow a child to make her own choices. The lyrics say, "This is your life. What 'cha gonna do?...The choices you make say what you are and who..." Listen: "This is Your Life" by Francesca Battistelli

When I honor a child's right to choose, I tell her yes. I let her make the choice. And when a child is given that choice often enough she senses the love in that. She may not be able to analyze it like I do, but she feels it. Every child knows that she has agency - the God-given gift to choose. I believe children learn to honor the rules we ask them to keep when we honor their agency rule as much as we can.

The movie Miracle Worker by Walt Disney is a retelling of the Helen Keller story. Helen was born seeing and hearing but at 19 months old contracted an unknown illness later thought to be scarlet fever or meningitis which left her blind and deaf for the rest of her life.  When Helen was 7 years old, Anne Sullivan was hired to teach and train her. Helen had acquired a number of bad habits because her parents, in their pity, had not set enough boundaries for her to enable Helen's relationships with her family to be compatible and sustainable. Anne first trained Helen to stop eating off of other people’s plates, eating with her hands, pinching, hitting, or hurting people when she wanted something, throwing things across the room, and collapsing on the floor screaming and kicking when she didn’t get her way. Anne was just beginning to get through to Helen. She was able to help Helen stop the tantrums and other undesirable behaviors but she hadn’t been able to fully teach her about her gift of agency. Helen’s father was satisfied with a more well-behaved, clean daughter. He wasn't interested in Helen's further progression, but Anne was. In the movie, Anne said to him, “I taught Helen one thing. 'No.' Don't do this, don't do that. I wanted to teach her ‘yes’."

When children are habitually out of control, it’s difficult to honor their agency. Because of Helen’s disability, she had developed some pretty bad habits. Those had to be “treated” first in order for her agency to be fully honored. I believe this is why the scriptures tell us to repent first "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand". I see the kingdom of heaven being the Holy Ghost and the angels who stand ready to teach and train each of us. Like Helen, we cannot see or hear them, yet we can sense them. But we won't want to listen to them and indeed can't hear them until we repent of the behaviors we know do not lead to compatible sustainable relationships.

 "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." ~ Matthew 3:2

When I was caring for the 4-year-old girl one day, I made the mistake of giving her some kid-scissors to cut some string she was playing with. When I wasn’t looking, she snuck away and used them to cut her hair. While it wasn’t the end of the world that her bangs were a little shorter, I should probably have thought through some privileges a bit more before giving them. Children also have the tendency to take advantage of the agency we give them. They’re not doing it to spite us any more than we’re doing it to spite God when we take advantage of the agency he gives us. Most of us are just exploring our universe, seeing where the boundaries are, and seeing what happens when we make certain choices. We’re all a bunch of scientists.

I brought the scissor-event up to identify the boundaries of the agency rule.  It’s not love if we give them too many choices. This was shown with Helen Keller's parents spoiling her out of pity. The wise parent and grandparent looks for the balance. We can be overly controlling with our rules and boundaries or we can be underly controlling. We find that middle ground through our own scientific experiments and the guidance of the Holy Ghost.