TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO MAKE DECISIONS

Making decisions is part of everyone's daily life. But making GOOD decisions is a skill to be learned and developed. Equipping your children with those skills will give them life-long skills that will contribute to their contentment in life.

How to make GOOD decisions:

Gather data. Carefully assist your child in collecting all the data needed to make a decision. Parents do this by employing a mixture of listening, questioning, and repeating back to the child. Internal data are feelings, thoughts, and goals. External data could be the parents' desires or a friend's feelings.

Think. Spend time analyzing the data in light of the decision to be made. Think, with your child, about the specific decision that needs to be made in light of all the information. As much as possible, allow your child to take the lead, offering guidance and assistance when necessary.

Set boundaries. Be ready to hold your child back if his or her choice will have harmful or detrimental results. This provides your child with a sense of security and ease. Don't make the police-officer role prominent in the decision-making process. Allow the child to learn from his or her own experience. Step in when safety or disastrous effects are issues.

Teach and guide. Some of your most effective work will come after the choice has been put into action. Helping your child understand the consequences of the decision - whether positive or negative - is critical to learning.

Be a cheerleader. Whenever your child makes a good attempt, and especially if the child makes a great decision, go all out to reinforce his or her effort.

Example: Your child says, "What shall we give Dad for Christmas?" Gather data: he loves to play golf, he shaves every day, he wears a necktie every day to work, and recently spilled ketchup on his best necktie. Boundaries: he can't spend more than and he has one week to decide, purchase, and wrap the gift. Think: your child chooses to buy Dad a necktie with a naked golfer. Guide: you might want to point out that it may not be the most appropriate design for the office. Be a cheerleader: when your child chooses a pattern with a small conservative golf-ball pattern, support his or her choice.

Neil Clark Warren is a relational psychologist with 30 years in his own practice. He received his bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University, his M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Chicago. He is the author of Make Anger Your Ally, Finding the Love of Your Life, and The Triumphant Marriage. He and his wife, Marylyn, live in Southern California and have three grown daughters.
From Finding Contentment: When Momentary Happiness Just Isn't Enough by Neil Clark Warren, copyright (c) 1997. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tenn., 1-800-933-9673. All rights reserved.

© 1997 vinebranch@hotmail.com

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