Every decision you make becomes another spoke in your life’s wheel.
Think about it – a life is the cumulative of all the decisions you’ve taken (or not taken!).
If it’s this critical, then doesn’t it make sense developing this skill at the very beginning, when the kids are still young and malleable?
Decision making need not be a life-altering activity. Simple everyday choices can be the starting point. What do you want to eat or do or watch – all these too are decisions.
It’s not an isolated skill but one which impacts various aspects of one’s personality. It helps with personal growth and awareness.
Let’s understand the complexity of decision making by breaking down the process into simpler, more relatable concepts.
And before you say it’s easier said than done with kids, trust me I speak from experience. As a parent and educator, it’s a cake walk if you know the correct strategies and tools to use.
So let’s go, empower our kids.
Breaking Down the Decision-Making Process
Let’s begin with decoding the process of decision making.
- Identify the problem
- Gather information
- Weigh the options
- Make the choice
- Reflect on the decision.
It’s a simple 5 step process. Use it for different scenarios with the children and tweak it to suit your requirements.
Take a scenario at home. The child walks up to you, looking bored and disinterested.
- Figure out the problem – the child is bored.
- Find out the reason – no friends, has got nothing exciting to do, doesn’t feel like doing anything, etc.
- Discuss the options – do you want to go outdoors to play? Want to play something together? Are you feeling well? etc.
- Make the decision for him/her – try reading a few pages from this book. If you like it, you can continue reading; or you can try something else.
- You can think about the decision, its impact or reaction, and review other alternates.
You do these steps every time you’ve had to make a decision, only you never thought of it in this manner.
Use the same steps to teach your child to make a decision.
Tools and Strategies for Parents
“You’ve to decide by yourself!”
The child hears this and their mind freezes.
Don’t create fear or pressure with such do-or-die conditions. Avoid turning decision making look like an existential situation.
Remember, your reactions shape their decision making ability.
Let them learn to enjoy making a choice.
The more they learn to enjoy the process, the lesser they’ll feel overwhelmed as they grow up or when they have harder decisions to make later in life.
Try to get them to make a decision tree with all the choices and their outcomes the next time you want them to decide something. Make it look like a game.
Let them use one colour for each choice. Have arrows for the possible outcomes. From these, branch out the pros and cons. The colourful decision tree will be visually appealing and fun to make.
Which ice cream do you want to have? Tell me your 3 favourite flavours and why you want to have them.
Include pros and cons for the older kids so they get a deeper understanding of their choices.
Gradually build the difficulty level or complexity of the decisions to improve their critical thinking.
Role-play different situations and guide them through the process so they’re better prepared for future.
You can’t expect immediate results. The kids are still learning, so go easy on them.
Learning from Mistakes
Mistakes are the best way to learn what works, what doesn’t.
Use their mistakes to show them what went wrong and how, which decisions led to that specific consequence.
Instead of fearing making mistakes or getting scared of the consequences, build a relationship of trust where they know mistakes are acceptable. The way you handle the consequences, of course, are your decisions.
Like if they want to skip school and miss the test, let them. They’ll realise their folly when they see how it effects their grades. Instead of the “I told you so!”, talk to them about it.
By being able to make a decision, the child becomes –
– confident
– independent
– responsible
– reflective, and
– resilient
This makes them less susceptible to anxiety or stress. They feel more in control of the situation in life. Their confidence provides them the courage to self-explore.
It strengthens their growth mindset. And most importantly, they learn to view their mistakes as learning opportunities.
This positive attitude gives them an advantage over their peers every time, whether as kids or adults.
Summarising the Process
Making a choice needs you to be a problem solver who can think clearly and critically.
It teaches about managing time and people.
If you’re not able to convey your decisions or ideas clearly, then the outcome also gets impacted. So good communication skills is essential.
A decision cannot be made in isolation. Having empathy for the people influenced by the decision is equally important.
In short, with every choice, they build on their confidence, independence, responsibility, resilience, problem solving ability and empathy.
It’s a complete package deal where teaching your child about decision making can inadvertently teach them so much more that it’ll reflect in their well-developed personality.
Go ahead and begin but remember to go one step at a time.
They want to be like you. Give them a few years to reach where you are now.
