My Child Making Good Decisions?

How Do I Teach My Child How to Make Good Decisions?

One of the most powerful ways you can encourage your children to become successful, happy and contributing people is to teach them good decision-making skills, and then to allow them to make their own decisions. You can start helping in this decision-making process when the child is very young-just by asking what kind of ice cream do they want – chocolate or vanilla-how easy is that.

By the time the child is in the 4^th or 5^th grade, they need to be good at making decisions for themselves because by the time they get into Middle School there are drugs, alcohol, and sex to be concerned about and YOUR child needs to learn to say NO and stick to it.

Children can make decisions that are rash, egocentric and short-sighted. This absence of forethought can cause children to overlook the consequences of their decisions and to ignore their long-term ramifications.

Making poor decisions and experiencing the consequences helps your child learn how to make better decisions in the future. The poor decision-making should not continue. Decision-making is a skill, children can become very good at making bad decisions. Hold your child responsible for poor decisions instead of bailing them out of the trouble for their bad decision-making.

Ceding decision-making to your children is an incremental process based on their age, maturity and decision-making history. Always give the child a choice – not everything- but a choice of 2 items to make a decision about. Good decision-making is a complex process that takes years to master. So, when they go from being dependent on you to be independent they need to know how to make a good decision so the bad decisions do not last a time-of addiction or having children when they are children themselves.

The child should always ask themselves:

“What are the consequences of my decision today”.

“Is this decision in my best interest?”

Ask that question every day and teach your child to ask that question every day.

“Is this decision in my best interest?”

Over and over again ask the question

After the decision, help your child judge how good the decision was and, if the decision turned out to be a poor one, what they can learn from it in the future.

To help the child along in this decision-making process use a hypothetical situation, such as lying, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, any such questions.

Knowing the child’s interest and friends and talking about daily activities will help in your child’s decision-making skills.

Lead by example.

Your Child is in Constant Transition