Helping Your Child Make Choices
It has been said that "Decision making is MAKING things happen, instead of LETTING them happen". Decision-making is making choices. An important part of this process is acting on the choice, and accepting the results, no matter what they may be.
We all know people who can not make up their minds. They say things like, "Should I do this?….or Should I do that?" or "I don't know what to do?" These people never learned to make decisions.
Children can learn how to make choices. Before your child was three, he simply did not have the experience or ability to think through the answers to a problem. But the child from three to five can understand some of the different choices that he has. When he looks for solutions, he begins to see that each answer might have a different result.
Children learn by imitation and by experience. They watch Mommy getting ready to go to a party. Then when they play "dress-up", they also put on Mommy's voice: "Oh, dear, what shall I wear?" and "Do you think my gold earrings or silver ones look better?" We often see ourselves in our children's play. If we have trouble making decisions, our children do.
Preschoolers sometimes have trouble making choices when:
They do not understand the problem
They do not know what the rules are.
They do not see all of the possible solutions.
They do not have success.
Parents can help. Children need encouragement when they try to solve their problems. Sometimes they need help in stating the problem. You can ask a question that leads the child to the problem, instead of telling the answer. You can also remind the child of solutions he might have overlooked. But if he asks for reasons, be sure that your reasons make sense!
Let your child try out solutions, unless it is dangerous to do. For instance, one way to get off the high slide is to jump off, but that is not a safe solution. The child's other choices (either slide down, or come back down the ladder) are safer.
Children need freedom of choice, because they can not begin to learn about responsibility until they have some. But they also need to know what the rules are. There are some things that a parent does not give a child choices about; you expect him to obey your rules when his health, safety, or the rights of others are involved.
Parents make decisions about things like meal times, bed times, and cleanliness. You teach your child not to touch other people's belongings without permission. And of course, you would rather he did not hit, bite, or kick.
There are safety rules - not running in the road is a good example. It is important for your child to know that YOU make the decisions about his health and safety.
But there are many possibilities for letting your child make choices. He can arrange his own toys in the toy box or on the shelf. He can choose what games to play and what friends to invite. Sometimes he can decide where to go for a walk or ride. If he has a small amount of pocket money, he can choose how to spend it.
A word of warning: When you give your child a choice, make it a REAL choice, not a pretend one! Sometimes parents say, "Do you want to take a bath now?" or "Are you ready to eat?" Questions like these can be answered either YES or NO (or even MAYBE). Unless you are really willing to take "NO!" as an answer, it was not a real choice at all.
When your child does not have a choice, give warning. Tell him it is almost time for bed, and you will call him again in a few minutes. But if he does have a choice, let him make it.
The preschooler's approach to answers is not based on logic. He is interested in what the world has to do with HIM. Do not expect your preschooler to come up with the same solutions to a problem that you would. You are an adult. He is not.
As your preschooler gains practice with making decisions, he will also learn to live with the results. If he spent his dime for a candy bar, then he no longer has the dime when he wants to buy a toy. It is not easy to watch a child make an unhappy decision, but it is part of learning.
Try to make sure that he has some HAPPY results (even if you have to cheat a little!). And make sure he knows you are proud of him when he meets with success. Children need success, and they need praise for decisions and actions that turned out well.
Through imitation and experience, your child can learn to see his problems clearly, think about the solutions, choose one answer, act on it, and accept the results.
And THAT is decision-making: a very important part of growing up!
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