Decision making is one of the most important attributes of a successful life. Teaching your children to make wise decisions early in life will help them to lead a successful life. We all know that we make decisions everyday in our lives. They are big or small decisions. Sometimes these decisions turn out to be bad ones and we instantly regret making those decisions. In this post we talk about how you can Help Your Child Make Better Decisions And Choices.
One of the most important reasons of making a bad decision is the lack of thinking properly before making that decision. We do not understand or analyze the situation and we are in a hurry to make a decision. The result is that we make a bad decision.
Good decision making helps in building good character. Therefore it is important to guide our children in making wise choices and decisions early in life. When you guide your children early in life to make wise decisions, it will help them immensely in their adult life.
Help Your Child Make Better Decisions And Choices.
Some important tips to develop effective decision making in your children –
1. Try and involve them in your decisions.
This is one of the first steps to encourage decision making in your children. You can encourage them to contribute to your decisions such as what should be the dinner menu for the party, how should the children’s room be painted or decorated, gift ideas for any relative, places to visit during summer vacations etc.
Encourage them to think and come up with different suggestions. Once you find the suggestions good, you can then implement the same. This act will give them the confidence to think and come up with good solutions.
2. Teach your children to think and analyze before making decisions.
As children are young, they would like to do things quickly and in a hurry. Good decisions are never taken in hurry but are thought through properly.
Teach your children to brainstorm by encouraging them to play games and puzzles, which require brainstorming. Give them a task that can be handled in different ways, so that they are able to come up with multiple ideas. This activity helps them to look at problems from a different perspective. Always ask them questions which will encourage them to think through the reasons for taking a particular decision. It will also help them to evaluate the consequences of taking that decision.
3. Encourage them to stay calm and peaceful.
Most of the time when a problem comes our way, we adults lose our peace and calm easily. This is one of the major hindrances in making wise decisions. Teach your children to be calm and peaceful.
A calm and peaceful mind can think properly and rationally. It will help them to identify the problem and then try and figure out a solution.
4. Allow them to make mistakes while taking their own decisions.
Young children will not be making good decisions right from the beginning. They will make many mistakes in the process. It is important for them to fall and learn. They need to see the result of their bad decisions as well as their good decisions. Children will learn from their mistakes and will try and prevent committing these mistakes in the future.
Give them the freedom to take age-appropriate decisions like the choice of dress they would like to wear, a sport they would like to pursue, a hobby that they would like to learn more about or the food that they would like to order during restaurant visits etc. These small decisions will encourage and help them to take the right decisions in the future.
5. Limit the options and help them to prioritize their decision making.
Whenever children are given too many options, they are often confused. Not only children, even adults are confused. In order to avoid too much confusion, give them limited choices before they make a final decision. Teach them to avoid getting overwhelmed with too many choices.
Teach your children to prioritize their decision making. Initially, children will take a lot of time to decide on each and every matter. Here it is important for you to help them to categorize the problem. For e.g., Do not take too much time in deciding what food to eat as it is a small decision, whereas take a little more time in deciding which sport or hobby your child is interested in and would like to pursue in the future. This is an important decision which needs to be thought over properly. Though this process may take a little time, after they understand it, they will be able to take proper decisions.
6. Encourage your children to set goals and achieve them.
When you encourage your children to set goals, then the next thing is to take steps to achieve these goals. This will help them to understand the link between making decisions and taking action. Encourage your child to take small steps to reach their goals. Constantly motivate and praise them for every milestone achieved in the process of achieving these goals.
7. Some of the key steps for good decision making.
We have listed down some of the key steps that can be used to encourage effective decision making in children –
- Identify the problem and understand it properly.
- Evaluate the multiple options and possible solutions to the problem.
- Keep your calm and understand the benefits of each decision.
- Shortlist the solutions to a minimum of two before evaluating again.
- Understand what matters most from the shortlisted choices and their benefits.
- Then take the right decision.
These are some important tips which will help and guide you to develop effective decision making in children. When you guide children to make effective decisions, it will help them in their adult life. Bad decisions early in life help children to understand their mistakes and avoid them in the future.
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