“Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be. ‘The unknown person’ inside each of them is our hope for the future.”

—Janusz Korczak

I discovered this lovely quote the other day in the latest issue of La Leche League USA’s New Beginnings magazine. I’d never heard of Korczak before, but was drawn to the powerful message he articulated here. A Google search revealed that “Janusz Korczak” is the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish-Jewish pediatrician, children’s book author, and director of a children’s orphanage. Korczak and the 190 or so children in his orphanage all (apparently) died at the hands of the Nazis at the Treblnka extermination camp during WWII. Korczak was given the opportunity to be saved from death but would not leave his children.

The quote is profound, even without the “back story” of its author. And it is a message that is all too often foreign in today’s world. Children today are rushed into growing up on someone else’s schedule, with someone else’s grand plan for who and what they should become.

Books and countless Internet posts describe how to teach independence to young children, from “self-soothing” to arbitrary weaning to sleeping alone.

Don’t get me wrong—these things can be life skills, and important to be learned eventually. Take self-soothing, for example. Knowing how to take control of our own emotions is an important coping tool, for adults as well as children. But it is a tool, not the entire toolbox.

Self-soothing is at times used euphemistically to justify letting a baby cry it out. “Cry it out” has become such a mainstay phrase that you’ll see it as an acronym: CIO, as if that makes it okay. What a sad commentary on today’s society that we justify such an action that causes such stress to baby—and mom—all in the name of teaching independence. It’s definitely a teaching moment, but the lesson learned has little to do with independence.

As an adult, I know the value of other-than-self soothing. Sometimes I need the shoulder of a loved one or trusted friend, not necessarily to “fix” something, but just to offer solace, empathy, and compassion. It is that kind of care that allows me to soothe. It shows respect for me as a human being.

Would we want anything less for our children? Let’s teach them that we are here for them whenever and however they need us. That won’t make them more dependent; it will allow them to grow to independence on whatever timetable fits their needs and personalities.

And maybe it isn’t independence we need to teach our children, but interdependence. Let’s teach them how to help and be helped by others; how to work with others to reach solutions to tough problems; how to cope when there are no solutions to be reached.

By teaching those skills, we will do a far better job of preparing our children for the future—a future they can mold and create as they go along, finding that “unknown person” Korczak speaks of. It will happen in its own good time. Let’s make sure we enjoy that journey of self-discovery with our children, letting them be their own navigators. We can be there to comfort, cheer, and even offer advice.

Who knows, we might just discover an unknown person inside ourselves along the way.