As a parent sometimes our every instinct is to hover, instruct, direct, and make sure things are done right. This often saves us time, patience and sanity. We all know that many children strive for control. Most of the battles we have as parents are from strong willed children that want to be the ones making the decisions. They want some form of control. Something that they manage and are in charge of. Something that makes them feel like they’re more grown up and that you trust them.
If you give them the tools and strategies to do this well, explain to them how to do it, and then tell them you’re going to let them do it all by themselves (and to call for you when they’ve finished so you can see how amazing and independent they are), they will love this as much as you do. Give them the freedom to do this and do it well, you can review it with them when they’ve finished to see if they’ve achieved everything that you wanted them to. If they haven’t, figure out what obstacle is preventing them from doing it. Maybe they can’t remember something and it’ll take time. Maybe something is hard for them to find. Make the changes you need to make sure they can do it without assistance. If they need you to help them through it, that’s fine. If they need you to watch, that’s also fine. Sometimes it takes baby steps to get to independence… but trust me, with the right tools and set up it’s entirely possible for them to be as brilliant as you need them to be.