On a scale of one to ten, what’s your giving in level to your little one, one being low, ten being high?
Giving in too much can spoil a child. We may overdo this without realising, most times because we want a quick solution to pacify the kid or to get out of a sticky situation.
If you do find yourself giving in to your child more than you like, fret not and read on and we here at Mamahood try to help you out.
When Giving In Is Simply A Matter Of Convenience
Most times, when we give in to our children’s ways and wants, it’s because we feel cornered and resigned.
Not wanting to add on to our stress level of battling on with the child, we just dismiss or accept it by saying yes to what they want.
Which isn’t necessarily in their best interest nor benefit. We just want to take the easy way out and let things slide.
Doing otherwise requires a little more effort and possibly involves a lot of negotiating, especially with a determined and persuasive child!
But if we want to bring up a better disciplined and level-headed child, giving in is hardly the way to go.
If they are used to having their way all the time, they may end up having a hard time when they don’t get their way from others. And it makes it even harder to not get their way with us over time.
Things may get out of hand as they grow, especially when they reach their teenage years.
The foundation of their character is formed by the way they are being parented in their tender growing years.
It would be a big challenge to reverse their ways and upbringing when they no longer easily accept what we say.
Giving Children Choices
Giving choices is a way for us to manage our children’s lives, and it also teaches them to learn to manage their own life in later years.
Other than helping us as parents, giving choices to children also benefit them in many ways as part of their growth.
For a start, we come up with choices and they learn to make decisions based on what’s available at hand.
As an aside, this is good training grounds for them to weigh things out and live with the consequences of their choices.
If what they have asked for is not what you want to give in to, then it is also up to you to provide alternatives to that.
Make known that they either pick the alternatives offered or nothing at all of their requests.
When given something rather than nothing, they would take the something, that’s for sure! If they pick nothing, that’s still a choice they’ve made.
How Do Giving Choices Help?
By giving choices instead of giving in, both sides can be happy with win-win situations.
Of course, this is assuming we come up with fair alternatives. Having said that, these fair alternatives should also reflect the choices that we are absolutely comfortable with.
In a way, we win more because we only put onto the table what we approve of, and gently side-stepping what they have asked for.
Given the alternatives laid before the child, he or she then picks the best choice, using their own evaluation.
There’s no need to coax them into something we want. In turn, they learn to be happy with what they have picked.
How To Work With Giving Choices
In a way, giving choices to our kids can be an art in itself.
We need to learn some pitfalls to avoid so that we use the situation of giving choices as a character-building and learning platform for our children.
Bear these simple points in mind when drawing up choices and helping our children work with them.
1. Offer a limited number of choices
Offering them two choices is best as it avoids more confusion and indecision. Maybe set a maximum of three choices and that’s it.
Sometimes, having more to choose from can be overwhelming for little minds, too. Especially when we’ve left out the option they want most to have!
2. Guide them in their thinking process if they seem confused
In the midst of weighing their options, you can engage them in conversations to hear them think out loud as they try to make their decisions.
Guide them and give them tips on the pros and cons of each option, if it helps.
3. Allow them to walk away with nothing at all
If they still insist on what they want which you do not approve of, and not wanting the choices presented, then let them choose to end up with nothing at all.
Never fall back on giving in if it’s not serving you or the child well. Let him or her learn to cope with a no.
Life Is About Making Choices
Giving in instead of giving choices to children and fulfilling every demand they have can end up with terrible consequences for an entitled child. That’s the last thing we want as they grow into entitled adults.
Training our children to work with choices is a step towards them learning ownership.
After all, life is about making decisions at every turn of life, and our paths are often laden with choices we have to make.
We cannot always have our way, so learning early on to be “rejected” can be a helpful way to shape them.