Janet Krebs, Parenting Coach
I feel like I could write an entire book about GRIT and I know I’m going through the acronym itself on a very surface level but you’re going to catch the gist of it. We’ve already addressed G and R, so let’s address I today. And in my world, I is for independence.
Shocker! Name of my business, Raising Independence. Independence means a lot of different things, in a lot of different contexts. For today, we’re talking about personal independence, which really means to think for oneself, to be able to figure things out.
Independence is managing your life affairs without relying on others. Pretty standard definition, which is interesting and very timely, because in a world of social media reliance, electronic reliance, and artificial intelligence, we don’t even try and answer things for ourselves. We automatically enter it into any of the tools available for an immediate response.
What would happen if all of that went away? Would our kids, young people, next generations that are growing up with all this, would we find that they are able to make decisions on their own, solve problems on their own, handle their own affairs on their own? What does that actually mean? Like this could be a very profound line in the sand moment in our history.
I’m going to be a complete optimist and trust that there are many of you that are paying attention, and are fostering ways in your own families, in your own lessons, classrooms, ministries, wherever you have influence. I’m going to trust that there are many of you that are working on this, because isn’t the idea of raising families to raise the adults that will someday leave and be okay. They will leave the nest, and you won’t worry about them.
When they call you it will be a “hi mom, hey dad, just wanted to share a funny story….”. Isn’t that what we all really want? Just knowing that they’re okay and managing this game of life on their own.
I encourage you to consider independence. What does that mean for you? How do you foster? How do you cultivate?