30 things that help #14: Don’t offer too many choices

This post is part of Thirty Things That Help.

Don’t offer too many choices

I’m interested in the question of how much agency we give our children. On the one hand, we want them to practise making decisions, to become familiar with their own preferences, to grow up into thinking human beings not just automatons who do what they’re told.

On the other hand, choice can be paralysing, and sometimes we just need to get on with our day. In one of Charlotte Mason’s books she talks about how decisions are exhausting for children, and that we should not ask them to do very much decision-making at all. It’s interesting to see the recommendation not to offer choice to our children coming from a place of kindness, not merely authority.

Fashions have changed since Charlotte’s day, and I have seen firsthand the sometimes disastrous effect of offering a child too much freedom to choose. Even as a grown up I sometimes feel defeated by choice and just wish someone would tell me which option to go with. Decision fatigue is real!

Removing the unacceptable choices is one obvious step. If you don’t want a fight over your child choosing shorts in January, make sure there are no shorts in the closet. I also recommend you don’t make the mistake I always make, of offering the same number of choices as there are children, because each child is guaranteed to pick a different option and then you’re stuck having to cast the deciding vote and making at least one child unhappy, which is not a good way to begin any undertaking.

But maybe the best solution is to learn to stop yourself offering a choice in the first place. Pretend you’re a parent from fifty years ago and just make the decision yourself. It doesn’t mean your child never gets to choose, but it might mean you can actually get on with something instead of spending a large part of your day dithering and wishing you’d never raised the prospect of an outing/meal/read aloud etc to begin with.

Bonus tip for children who struggle with decisions: It has helped my indecisive children a lot to be reminded that this isn’t the last time they will get to make this decision. In the ice cream parlour, it’s not the last time they’re ever going to get to eat ice cream. They will have another chance pretty soon. It helps to take the pressure off making the best decision ever and instead frees them to just make a choice they’re happy with right now.

Don’t offer too many choices, and when you do, remember the decision doesn’t usually have to be perfect.

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The image for this post is from selaa_id via Unplash.