DAD-Chronicals : When will children be allowed to co-decide?

bembelmaniac (65)in #steemiteducation • 6 years ago

When will children be allowed to co-decide?

From an early age, children develop into personalities with their own opinions, needs and views. As a member of the family, they should also have a say, but always within their mental development and competences. Children who are allowed to decide too much on their own too soon will quickly be overwhelmed.

When can a child make decisions?

As soon as babies can grab their decisions become visible. You choose this or that toy, choose apple or pear, roll or biscuit. Even here, you can think about the freedom you want your child to have. Can it decide for itself what it wants to eat, or do you leave it with a limited offer or no choice? As children grow up, they are also able to make "bigger" choices as they develop mentally: children two and over can choose their good-after story, and children over three decide for themselves what to wear in kindergarten. At elementary school age, children choose their own hobbies and pastimes or sports. Basically, the ability to make decisions develops with the age of the child and to that extent you can and should also increase the scope.

Which decisions at what age?

The older a child, the more far-reaching decisions it can make. Again, your feeling is in demand. What can my child judge? Which decisions can it already overlook? This depends on the inner maturity of the child and can hardly be answered flat-rate. However, there are some guidelines:

For example, children up to the age of four can decide for themselves

What you want to eat (after preselection by the parents)
What you want to wear (after preselection by the parents).

At this age children should not have to make any exclusive decisions.

Children up to the age of six can decide on this, among other things

whether you want to go shopping with mom or rather dad in the garden
what you wish for your birthday.

From now on, children can handle even minor mistakes with unpleasant consequences well, without the decision-making pleasure suffers.

For example, children up to the age of 10 can decide on it

where and with whom you want to go on vacation,
in which color you want to have your nursery painted.

Children can think a little more about the future. They have certain empirical values that help them to judge situations correctly.

Children over the age of 10 are getting more and more decision-making powers - of course always suitable for their age and development. From the age of 12, they also have a legal right to have a say, for example in the choice of place of residence in case the parents divorce.

Making decisions means taking responsibility

Whoever gives his or her own decisions in an appropriate way promotes a very important characteristic: the sense of responsibility. Children who decide to learn something early on, that every decision has consequences and that they are responsible for it. Of course you should and must protect your child from unreasonable decisions with harmful consequences. At the same time, however, you can tolerate incorrect decisions by the child. The learning effect in this case is enormous.

Decision support by the parents

To decide must be learned. Children, like everyone else, must practice this. The faster, the more stress-free the first decisions of the toddler are. It is particularly important not to force the child to choose between two alternatives that exclude each other. Such decisions are difficult or impossible for the child because it does not have the horizon of experience to weigh up two options: do you want to go to the sea or to the mountains on vacation? Even for adults, this question is often difficult to answer, for children it is impossible. Maybe you have never been at sea or in the mountains before, or at most, how should you know what you like better? In the end, they will be unhappy about weighing and puzzling. It's easier to make your first decisions like this: Do you want the story of the robber Hotzenplotz and then the Pixie book or vice versa? That too can be hard, but the child knows that it has nothing to lose. It enjoys the choices and the freedom it feels. With this approach, a child gradually grows into a decision-making authority and the parents can expand the freedom of choice more and more.

Beware of complex decisions

Before children can balance options and make complex decisions, they must practice a lot and, above all, reach a certain age. The consideration of consequences that arise from a particular action, children learn at the earliest elementary school age and even then the decisions may not be so complicated that the child is overwhelmed by it. Parents who give their child a lot of freedom of choice need to pay close attention to when the child is overwhelmed. The signs are usually clear: The child is nervous and fidgety, may begin to complain or angry, helplessness is spreading and the child is also clearly on the face to read. In such a case, parents should row back and offer child-friendly variants or postpone the pending question.

Did I forget something? Can you think of any more points?
I´m looking forward to your experiences and additions.