Leave them to their own devices...

Ok, I know that sounds like a bad idea. A really bad idea if you have a kid or two like mine. But sometimes, it's good to (in a controlled environment with lots of supervision) leave kids to find things out for themselves. Now, "lots of supervision" and "leaving to their own devices" doesn't sound like ideas that are compatible, but with babies and toddlers, I think there's a difference between "hovering" and "supervising"... let me explain.

We all know those parents (or are those parents) who do everything with and for our kids. Picking them up every time they hit their head in the tiniest way, holding them after the smallest whimper, etc. This is what I consider "hovering." Now for some people, this isn't a bad thing. I am not bashing this in any way - it's just not for me, and Aria would not be pleased if this was the way we did our parenting. I would also be holding her constantly, as she's throwing her head into something every 3 minutes or so.

For Aria, starting at about 5 months, she could pick up her pacifier and get it in the vicinity of her mouth. And she liked that. Well, at this point, the novelty of putting her own pacifier in her mouth has kinda wore off, so she wants us to put it right back in like we did before. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen, kiddo. Besides the fact, this helps her work on her coordination, it's good for her to realize that Mommy and Daddy aren't going to do everything for her because she wants us to. For almost all meals (midnight meal not included) we have her hold her own bottle, because she can. If she wants a toy across the room and she's on the ground crawling around, we may move it closer to her, but she has to put forth the effort to get it.

This has worked really well for us, and it's helped Aria improve her ability to entertain herself, which is great for me. She's figured out how to work most of her toys, and that's because we didn't always push all the buttons for her - she had to figure out how to make the toys sing or move, and when she did, the look of pride on her face was just too cute and totally worth it. Because she feels the "freedom" to wander around the living room, she's discovered all sorts of things - how to open a drawer, how to close a drawer, drawers without knobs do not open and the like :)

How did you teach your kids to do things on their own? What was your child's first accomplishment that he/she was truly proud of?