Parenting Tips: Giving Choices

The next tip I want to discuss is giving choices. This is another tip taken from my 8 Tips for Parents.This is a very important concept that really begins from the time a baby is born and can be used throughout childhood and adolescence as part of a holistic pediatric approach to your child.

Giving Choices Accomplishes the Following:
1. Gives your child plenty of opportunities to practice this important skill of decision making.
2. Gives them a sense of identity and individuality through this process.
3. Helps with the long term goal of building self esteem.
4. Lays the foundation, and builds a track record of choices made and their outcomes.
5. Empowers your child and gives you some control at the same time.



All kids need to make choices and learn the difference between making individual decisions and complying with others. You want your kids to have plenty of practice at this so that by the time they reach their teenage years they will be well versed at making good choices.

This gives them a sense of their own identity and individuality. In addition, the consequences of making good choices will reflect on their own self esteem, and the consequences of making bad or poor choices will lead to learning valuable lessons so as not to repeat them again.

This lays the foundation and builds a track record of the choices they have made and their outcomes which is stored in their own memory banks. These choices are what they will refer back to over the course of their whole lives as they live, grow and learn more.

I usually recommend giving choices as early as possible. This serves the dual purpose of giving practice for the child, and it gives them an outlet to exert their own will power. Of course, in reality, you are the one who is giving the list of choices to choose from, but the overall feeling of making a choice can be very empowering for your child. It fulfills an important developmental need and it doesn’t require you to have to exert your own will power over your child’s.

This is an invaluable tactic when you’re trying to navigate through the preschool and early childhood years; when testing the limits of acceptable behavior and your patience are pushed to their maximums.

An example of giving choices might be asking, “Which of these three outfits do you want to wear to school today?” or maybe asking, “Do you want to help me clean up the kitchen, or help me vacuum the living room?”

In other situations, it may be more appropriate to give time windows as choices like, “Do you want to do your homework before dinner or after dinner?” Another one might be “Do you want to do your chores before school or after school?” I’m sure you can think of an infinite number of ways to use this technique. I highly recommend that you use it frequently.

For more information about my approach to holistic pediatrics,
visit this page on the Principles for Parents website called Your Healthy Child.