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.

I’m going to discuss this topic of individuality taken from my free ebook called Paradigm Shifting Principles for Parents. Perhaps the most important information I can give you is to pay attention to the context your child’s situation fits into. What I mean is, your child’s individual nature is unquestionably the most important factor in their learning, your parenting, and my general advice-giving in my supporting role to you as a pediatrician.

What most parents don’t realize is that although their own child is unique, our current medical system considers them to be the opposite. This is a shocking realization for everyone involved, including myself as a practicing physician! While we in the medical community pay lip service to the laudable goal of treating your child as an individual, the fact is, very few practitioners have the time, the understanding or the framework within which to work to accomplish this goal. It is my view that you as the parent are the only one who can possibly attain this outcome for your child. No practitioner or medical system can do it for you or for them. All we can hope to do is point you in the right direction. This has been and will continue to be my goal in my interactions with you, either in person or indirectly through my writings.

How Does Your Child Absorb Information?

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about to make this more clear. In my practice, I place a lot of importance on how your child takes in information, and how they assimilate it. Some kids are very feeling oriented and kinesthetic or sensitive to their surroundings including other people. Some kids are much more verbal and talkative, and they show an ability to communicate their wants and needs to you in a flurry of words and phrases. Still other kids are more auditory, and they need to hear instructions, encouragement, and/or reinforcement, sometimes repeatedly and numerous times before it will finally “sink in”. As you can see, the logical strategy is to match the method with the easiest way your child can absorb the information you are trying to get through to them.

Pigeon Holing is Not Logical

If I am called upon to give advice to help parents with a child with a particular problem, it is imperative that I know which of the above methods will most likely result in the most efficient way to address the issue. Is it logical for me to arbitrarily choose one method for all kids of a certain age group, knowing that there is wide variability in how kids take in information? This is what I call pigeon-holing and I see it constantly cropping up in the medical field in particular. As a physician, I am just as much to blame for this unfortunate tendency because I used to think and practice in that way. Now I am trying to reverse the trend and begin the necessary dialogue to find common ground between parents and practitioners for the benefit of your kids.

Individualize Your Approach to Your Child

Now if we come back to your role as the parent. There is no doubt that you have the most influence and hold the most important position when it comes to your child, period. What I want you to know is that there is nothing wrong with individualizing your approach to all things related to your child, and I would include the medical or health related decisions you make. I can only make this statement now, after many years in practice, because I have arrived at an understanding that includes the energy medicine view of your child and your family. I do not believe we can ignore the very important contribution energy influences make during your child’s growth and development years. You can read more of my perspectives on this in other posts I have made in the energy medicine category here.

If you’d like more information, go here to download the full version of the free ebook: Paradigm Shifting Principles for Parents.