Parenting - Giving Children Choices. Part III

Tara Aquila — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 15:44:51 +0000

Parenting - Giving Children Choices. Part III Tara Aquila Tue, 08/31/2021 - 11:44

Giving Children Choices Part Three

When I was raising my two boys, I was learning about giving choices. One winter's day, we took a walk in Washington Crossing State Park. It was here I decided to practice my new skill.

"OK, guys, we can take this trail or that trail. What's your choice?"

"Do you want to rest now, or shall we keep going?"

"I have a snack; do you want an orange or an apple?"

Sometimes they would ask me to do something.

"Can we go explore that area?"

"Can we sit on the stone wall?"

I would consciously try to frame it as a choice. "Yes, that is a good choice. I'm glad you thought of that." Rather than saying, "Yea" or simply "OK.” But this is not the point of the story. What happened next during the trip, I found amazing.

We came to a very unsafe-looking bridge. It was ice-covered and looked poorly constructed. Ed immediately asked, "Can we cross the bridge?" Instinctively I would respond with a loud "No!" But I calmed myself and said, "OK guys, you know I have been giving you choices this whole trip, but this time there is no choice here, that bridge is unsafe and icy, there is no choice, we are not crossing it."

To my amazement, both agreed, and we continued walking. Why was this so amazing? Ed was one of those kids that if you told him not to touch something, he had to touch it. I wouldn't say he was oppositional, but it was close. I think this was the first time Ed simply did what I asked without an argument or even ten thousand reasons why he should cross the bridge.

To be honest, it was just a good guess that I phrased my response that way ("Look, I been giving you choices all along, there is no choice here."). Years later, I found out that this technique has an official name. It's called "Cashing in.”

I discovered this when watching a video lecture from the parenting program “Love and Logic.” The lecturer described it as a bank account, you give children choices, lots of them, but when it comes to times that they cannot make a choice, you withdraw from the account. "Look, I've been giving you choices, but sometimes, I need to make a choice here." In general, children find this a reasonable argument and will not challenge you when you need to take over and choose for them.

One more thing about cashing in; it seems to work best if there is a reasonable explanation for not giving a choice.

"There is no choice here because it is unsafe."

"There is no choice here because, as the grown-up, I understand that this is not going so well, so I will stop it now."

If the child wants a more detailed explanations about why they cannot choose, you should provide them. However, in my experience, if you carefully explain why, you are denying the choice, the first explanation is usually enough.

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Richard Lange, Ph.D., LPC, LCSW

Parenting - Giving Children Choices. Part II

Mary Beth Woodward — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 13:46:59 +0000

Parenting - Giving Children Choices. Part II Mary Beth Woodward Mon, 08/09/2021 - 09:46

In the last blog post, I talked about how giving children choices gives them some sense of power and control in their lives. Remember, children all day long are being told what to do. By providing children small choices in their lives, they feel that they have some say or some ability to make decisions independently.

In this part, we continue to discuss two different “choices” methods, the “forced choice” and the “alternative choice.”

Some children will refuse to make a choice. For example, you said to your child, “do you want to have milk or orange juice with your breakfast?”. Now, just to test to see if they have any power, some children will respond, “Neither, I am not going to choose.”

There are two ways of dealing with this. First, if the child is under six years (somehow it doesn’t work for children over six), you simply say, “Well, neither is a choice, I will give you one last chance to choose, and if you don’t make a choice, I will choose for you.” Surprisingly young children will always give in (they don’t want the power to be taken from them), “OK, I’ll take the milk.”

Over six, they might not buy this and dig their heels in: “I don’t care; I’m not going to drink either.” Here you can switch to the “alternative choice.”

“OK, maybe you are not in the mood for milk or orange juice. What would you like to drink? But one of the choices cannot be soda.” (Notice here you are giving what are called limited choices—this, this, but not this.) The child might have in mind they wanted to drink all along. “I want cholate milk.” Problem solved.

Or it could be possible they were just testing their power, and they might be thrown off that they can make a choice and are not prepared to decide what to drink, so they might ask, “What else do you have to drink.” So here again, you can use the limited choices, “Well, you can have cholate milk, water, yogurt drink, but no soda.”