- It is important that parents as well as health care providers and nursery teachers help young children become independent by allowing and encouraging them to take responsibility for themselves whenever possible.
- Children should daily practice self-help skills such as self-feeding, independent dressing (including zipping and buttoning), and grooming, hygiene and toileting, cleaning, helping with setting tables for meals, tidying up and helping with other daily chores as well.
- During such activities, children practice their large and small motor skills, gain confidence in their ability to try new things and build their self-esteem and pride in their independence. Similarly, children with developmental delay should have such activities included in their therapeutic programs. For these tasks to be successful and effective, the child should be given tasks that are within his potential and appropriate for the developmental level he / she is functioning at. Initially, prompts as well as reinforcement should be used to help the child with the tasks. Thereafter, prompts are gradually faded with the aim of helping the child reach the independence stage of task acquisition.
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