At this time of year, Americans give some thought to the concept of national independence and the historical events that established our nation as an independent country. On other occasions, we may or may not think of our own personal independence and the personal history that helped establish it.
Americans have valued personal independence - autonomy, or self-rule-for many years. On the whole, American parents want their children to show autonomy, to be independent, self-reliant, even boldly self-sufficient individuals. Parents in many other nations prefer to encourage their children to be less individualistic and more deeply involved with the family. A good example of these national differences is seen in attitudes toward infant sleeping arrangements. Parents in the United States consider it best for children to sleep alone in their own beds. Many, though not all, are concerned if toddlers and preschoolers pad in, in the middle of the night, and creep into the beds of their sleepy parents. Rightly or wrongly, such co-sleeping raises disturbing questions in many minds if a child sleeps with a single father. But in other parts of the world-for instance, among the Maya people of Mexico--- American sleeping arrangements for children are considered shocking. Babies, especially, are expected to share the beds of adults or older brothers and sisters, and to make them stay alone would be thought abusive.
People thus have different beliefs about the desirability of independence, versus dependence on other people. But how do children think about these things? Looking at typical steps in development, we see that there are some periods in children's lives when they seem to be especially concerned with their autonomy. Young infants don't really care about acting independent and respond happily as long as we keep them comfortable and do more or less as they think they want. However, with the toddler period comes a time of resistance and negativism so intense that the child seems to prefer doing without what he wants to doing things the adult's way. "No!" is the default response to every question, even though it's sometimes changed to "yes" as the child realizes he's just refused an ice cream cone.
This overdose of autonomy can be difficult for adults to cope with, as every daily decision becomes fraught with potential conflict. But think about the alternative. Yes, life would be a breeze if toddlers let us put on their coats without argument, came running when picked up at day care rather than resisting getting into the car, and used the toilet as instructed. However, what would those children be like as adults if they had never developed the ability to feel and assert their independence? Would you like to have a grown-up son or daughter who complied with what everyone wanted, right down to the point of ending up in jail for someone else's crimes? Highly compliant, non-autonomous adults can cause their families a lot more trouble than resistant toddlers do.
The urge for autonomy settles down a bit in the school years, or at least schoolchildren are able to find ways they can be autonomous without disturbing adults. As adolescence begins, though, the push for autonomy intensifies once more, along with the strong increase in sexual and aggressive motivations. Parents and teachers become frightened as teenagers press for independence in new ways and rush to activities at which they are far from expert, sometimes getting into risky situations. Again, however, an adult will not be mature or responsible if he or she has not managed to achieve autonomy in new areas that were unknown to the younger child.
One view of autonomy is that its development is needed, but in balanced form, so that the individual can choose rationally when to behave autonomously and when to depend on others. The developmental theorist Erik Erikson emphasized this balance of development in books like "Childhood and Society".
A point that Erikson did not discuss much was the possible effect of changing values in a society. In my "grandparent" generation, most of us experienced a great deal of encouragement to behave autonomously in what then seemed like quite a safe world. When my sons, the present "parent" generation, went to college, I provided help that my own parents would not have given, but would never have dreamed of telephoning them daily. Today's college freshmen maintain frequent contact with their parents and seek help in ways that would once have been viewed as inappropriately dependent. It seems that historical as well as cultural differences need to be considered as we examine the human need for autonomy.
