Allowing your child to make decisions

I like the way one of my friends gives her five-year-old child the opportunity to make choices and decisions. Some of you may be wondering, “Are you sure a five-year-old kid can make decisions?”

Well, if there are too many choices, it is possible that the child will have difficulty in making a decision. Parents need to help children learn how to make choices and decisions instead of making decisions for them all the time.

How do we go about doing it? Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D, clinical psychologist and author of Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos: How to Help the Child Who is Bright, Bored, and Having Problems at School, suggests that parents use a technique called structured choices. What is a structured choice? It is when we give a child a choice of two or three things. For example, my friend knows what she wants her child to do and gives her child one of her predetermined choices.

For example, my friend will ask her child, “Do you want to read a book or paint a picture?” My friend is fine if her child chooses either option for her leisure time. Mummy has control and kid has control. There is no power struggle between mummy and kid.

If you find that your child does not know how to manage his or her time, help him or her by planning a daily timetable together. Within the structured time of completing his or her homework, let your child make a decision. For example, you can ask your child, “Do you want to complete the Math worksheet first or do the Science project first?”

If you want your child to clean up the mess in the room before you leave for your family outing on weekends, you can ask your child, “Before we can leave, your room needs to be cleaned up. Do you want to start with the toys on the floor or clear the top of your desk?”

Decision making is a skill that needs to be learned as all of us have to make decisions in our lives. What are the advantages of decision making?

• It allows the kids to gain more confidence and develop self-esteem. 
• It shows that we trust our kids.
• The conversations surrounding decision-making leads to a stronger bond between the parents and the child.

You must also let the kids know that choices have consequences. Their mistakes are their own and their successes are their own.

“Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.”
~ Unknown

If young children are given the opportunity to make mistakes and have successes, as they grow older, they will be better able to make good choices instead of just doing what everyone else is doing.

“A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.”

~ Chinese Proverb