CHOICES

So once we know that we don’t control others and that anger short circuits learning how the heck do we get our family out the door in the morning? How do we leave the park when the fun is over, or get our children to do their homework, or go to bed at night? I mean, I am a fan of bribery when I’m desperate, but surely there is a better way.

That is where choices come in. One way to raise confident independent children is by offering them lots and lots of choices. When we try to bully our children into doing things they might learn obedience, but it can also lead to a feeling of powerlessness and frustration. However, when we share the control, even (and especially) in small and insignificant things, their wheels start spinning and you give them a priceless gift. It’s the gift of thinking. The way you share this control and empower them is through choices. 

The Love and Logic rules about choices is that they can’t be dangerous or create problems for others, and Dr. Fay says if the child does not choose in 10 seconds you choose for them.  Here is how it works. All day long, for any situation that you feel works for you, you ask your child if they want “this or that”. It only works when you are okay with either option. Every time you offer them two of the right choices you are teaching them to have some control of their actions. They are learning to make good choices in an environment that is safe and when the price tag is low!

Sometimes they don’t get a choice. It’s perfectly fine to explain that you have given them lots of opportunities to choose, but now it is your turn to decide. There are also going to be plenty of times where any child with a mouth will choose a third option (which was not given). In this case you stick to your guns and decide on the appropriate consequence. As Danny Silk says in Loving Our Kids On Purpose, 

“This is the real world, and it really works like this. We are all making choices in every situation, and those choices are bringing certain consequences into our lives. When we show our children what the real world is like, we equip them to be aware of the fact that they are making choices all the time and we enable them to take responsilbiltiy for them.” 

 The example he gives is let’s say the dad offers a choice for the child to clean up his room or pay dad to clean it for him. The son chooses neither and  leaves. The dad happily cleans the room and BONUS- it gets done the way he wants it. Then later he tells the son he owes him $50. Of course the son either has no means to pay or refuses to pay. So that dad calmly enforms him that he can easily get $50 for the Xbox and then he follows through with selling it. It is STRONGLY recommend that you never ever suggest a consequence or choice that you are not willing to enforce. For example, he says you better not just hide that Xbox for 6 months and bring it back out. That defeats the whole lesson and the lesson is more valuable than an Xbox!

I personally have been doing this method of choices for three years now and it has been transformative! In the morning let’s say my daughter is not really feeling like getting ready I will just whip out the choices to get her to wake up and put her thinking cap on. Do you want boots or sneakers? Pick one. Do you want a waffle or cereal? Do you want one pony tail or two? This method  is so much smoother than just barking orders and getting into fights. We still hit walls,  esepecially if lets say she wants to wear a swimsuit to school or eat a candy bar for breakfast, but it alleviates some of the battles, I can promise you that. The more you practice it the more natural it will come and you’ll find yourself  giving choices with ease when it’s the heat of the moment.

When I read Love and Logic in 2012 I wrote this example out that I was using at the time. I guess I was anticipating a blog post. Looks like it only took 2 years for me to get around to it! Anyway It’s neat to look back over it because our bed time routine is completely different now, but it’s actually so much better than it was back then. So that’s encouraging for me to see how far we’ve come!

At bedtime Instead of starting the process by announcing “The movie is done it’s time for bed” followed by protests and melt downs. It might go something like this

Do you want to wear your Mario Pajamas, or snowmen? 

Okay, well who is going to turn the tv off tonight? Me or you?

Now what are we going to do brush teeth or go potty? 

Do you want to brush your teeth or do you want me to do it for you? 

(whiney voice)

I am sorry I don’t understand. 

(whiney voice) 

I can’t understand the whiney voice I can when it’s a big boy voice

(whiney voice)

I will listen to you when your voice sounds like mine. 

Z: I don’t want to brush my teeth mom. 

You can brush your teeth or I can brush them for you, but if I brush them I get to pick the book we read tonight.

Then he brushes his teeth and picks a book

Then we say a prayer 

Then he usually wants to keep the book with him and I let him, but if it distracts him from sleeping I take it away and he knows that. One night I took the book and he had a huge breakdown throwing himself on the floor and the whole shebang. So I said, OH DEAR I guess we aren’t going to be able to pick that book again. I then followed through with this consequence when he wanted that book later. 

That was when my son was 5 and now he is 7. Like I said, I haven’t even looked at these notes since then and I am just amazed. That’s my personal little testimony I guess.

For the record when your children are very young there isn’t a whole of logical thought process developed in their little minds, so sometimes you do have to take the bull by the cute little horns, and I mean that in a loving way. If you’re a mother I am sure you have had to force your baby into a car seat, or take away dangerous objects without giving them a choice, or my favorite break up a fight by dragging the offending toddler off of the victim. I’ll be sharing a separate blog post on my opinions on parenting children under 5, but it’s not too early to start implementing some of these teachable parenting tactics. Whenever you feel like they are ready for some simple options then go for it. I think you will be amazed at what you see! I know I have. 

This is day 14 of a 31 day series. For the rest of Teachable Parenting click HERE.