How to Choose and Other Parenting Tips

“Learn how to choose?” the young mom said. “What does that have to do with my kids?”

Plenty.

Especially if you have a two-year-old.

Don’t you like to have a choice?

Of course, you do.

But making any choice and making a good choice are two different things.

Why does a toddler need to know how to choose?

Perhaps you’ve heard of the “terrible twos?”

Or, maybe like my friend Anne, you call them the “terrific twos?”

Often when a child celebrates their second birthday, they want to control their surroundings.

They want to exercise their own will, thank you very much.

This is where teaching them how to choose begins.

Present them with two different options–ones that you don’t care about.

As in, “Do you want to wear the green shirt with your jeans, or the yellow shirt?”

At least it’s got buttons! (Unsplash)

Hold out both choices. Let them select which one they want.

The result: they’re happy because they’ve controlled the outcome.

You’re happy because you didn’t care either way.

The toddler learns they can exercise some control.

And they like it.

Aging up in learning how to choose

It continues as they grow up.

I told my boys they had to wear a shirt with buttons to church on Sunday.

I didn’t care which one.

They had several options in their cupboard.

If the shirt had buttons, I didn’t say anything. I may not have liked that particular shirt, but it was their choice.

Similarly, I required them to pick up their room once a month so I could vacuum it. (In hindsight, I’d make that once a week, I’ve learned!)

An earlier version of this book changed how I saw parenting.

A lot of this decision-making came from hearing author Cynthia Tobias on the Focus on the Family radio show.

She spoke about “learning styles” that day in the 1990s.

I realized that just because I had trouble concentrating in a messy room, it didn’t mean my kids did.

I stopped telling them what to do and taught them how to choose what worked for them.

The yelling stopped. Complaining stopped. I learned how to phrase my “suggestions,” so the children recognized the benefit to them.

Shortly after this “cleaning breakthrough,” we introduced the clothing allowance.

The benefits of training kids how to choose for themselves

We only have our children in the house for a set number of years, usually about 18.

Once they leave home, the consequences of their choices are theirs.

At least, that’s what we hope for when we launch them into the world.

(Some, obviously, learn earlier.)

If they learn how to choose while still at home, we can supervise.

Rewarding good behavior, asking respectful questions

When a child came up with an idea, we listened and asked sensible questions.

Our tone made the difference.

I had to train myself to say, “That’s an interesting idea, I can see you’re thinking about it. Have you considered this ____________?”

Sometimes my teenager bristled.

Try to avoid asking this late, “Still think this is a good idea?” (Jennifer Kalenberg on Unsplash">Unsplash)

But if I asked it respectfully, they often paused and thought.

We paid them for unusual chores (cleaning the car, painting, heavy gardening).

They had routine requirements for living in the house.

When it came time to spend what they’d earned, I let them.

Sometimes, I had to bite my tongue and allow them to learn from their mistakes.

(One child had to help an auto body shop friend repair our car.)

Money and how to choose where to spend it

Learning how to manage their money was an excellent place for choice errors.

If they bought something over our suggestions, they lived with the consequences.

Mistakes rarely happen more than once if the children learn how to choose well.

One of our roles as parents is to prepare our kids for the future world.

Teaching them how to choose responsibly is an excellent way to help.

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