Training your children in DECISION MAKING

How often have you thought about training your child/children to make wise decisions?

I remember a little Gem that a fellow young mum passed on to me in the early days. Keep decision making simple for young children. For example, instead of asking, “What would you like on your toast?” ask, “Would you like peanut butter or vegemite on your toast?” In so doing we give the child a sense of control over the situation but we’re keeping it within boundaries that are helpful for the smooth running of family life. Generally, young children don’t have enough background knowledge or experience to make good decisions. They also need to be taught that the decisions they make often impact others. I remember finding these ideas helpful at the time. I can’t remember exactly how we followed through with this as our sons got older, but no doubt, this thought encouraged me to start young in training our sons in decision making. I know we prayed that they would make wise decisions as they became teenagers and young adults and I’m glad that from time to time, they came to us to discuss important decisions they were about to make.

It concerns me that I see a trend in our society to give too much freedom of choice to children and teenagers in our ‘me first’ society and not enough training at home on how to make wise choices. As I’ve said in previous Gems, training our children involves a certain degree of sacrifice of time and effort on our part and I would encourage all young parents to give some thought as to how they are training their children in decision making. For young children, as well as the advice I was given to keep the choices simple, you can model decision making by thinking out aloud and discussing the pros and cons of each possibility. I’ve discovered that there are quite a few helpful resources for parents on the internet.

For example, on http://verywellfamily.com I found the following suggestions for parents to help their teens make good decisions. They are:

Provide Guidance
Help the teen identify the problem
Encourage the teen to brainstorm other options
Evaluate these options,
Create a plan to move forward
Writing down the pros and cons of several options can help teens tackle a problem with logic rather than basing their decision on emotion alone.

Here are a few other web sites that I found helpful:

http://handyhandouts.com #273 Helping Children to Make Choices
http://verywellfamily.com Steps to Good Decision Making Skills for Teens
http://sparktheirfuture.qld.edu.au How to help your teen make good decisions about school and life

May God bless and guide you as you seek to guide your children and teenagers in laying a foundation for making good decisions in life.

Grandma Adele