Wellness Articles
Attached are weekly health and wellness articles provided by Alberta Health Services. As a way to help all Albertans live a healthy life, we welcome and encourage weekly newspapers, community newsletters and other publications to reproduce this information free of charge. Credit to Alberta Health Services or the identified content provider would be appreciated.
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Proposed publication date: June 23, 2014
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This week’s Healthy Content is an excerpt from Apple, Alberta Health Services’ health and wellness magazine. Credit to Apple magazine is appreciated. For more information on Apple please visit: www.applemag.ca.
Growing up and growing independence
Giving kids the support, skills and confidence they need to be adults
When Maddy Milne moved from Calgary to Edmonton to go to the University of Alberta, she thought it would be cool to live without her parents’ rules.
While she didn’t have her parents telling her what she could and couldn’t do, Milne says she found “life will come around to kick you when you make mistakes. You won’t get grounded for not doing your homework, you probably just won’t pass your classes.”
That was one of the biggest “eye-opening experiences” Milne, 18, faced in her first year away from home.
Growing up and growing independence begins long before a child moves out of the house. It can start with helping set the dinner table as a preschooler, taking the garbage out in Grade 4, doing the laundry in junior high and getting a driver’s licence in high school. In every case, a child learns and grows from tackling new challenges, and that builds confidence to take on the next one.
“A skill set that a lot of young adults need to learn is to be able to make their own decisions. This comes from learning in the preteen and adolescent years,” says Deb Thul, adolescent transition coordinator at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. Parents can help their children learn skills they will need to be more independent.
Children also need to make some of their own decisions, even if they’re the wrong ones. “Oftentimes making a bad decision is how they learn to make good ones,” says Thul.
Whatever milestone they’re facing, kids benefit from having close friends and community, chances to build self-esteem and someone to talk to when they need support. Kids can get support from their family, guidance and career counsellors, teachers and coaches, mental health services and church or community groups.
Every transition can be stressful, but the more kids manage, the more they’re ready for the next one.
— reprinted from Apple magazine