The Importance of Giving Your Kid Choices

It is the duty of parents to provide their children with a holistic upbringing and arm them with the tools necessary to live their lives to the fullest. Life is full of choices that range from what to eat for breakfast and what movie to watch to what career to choose and who your life partner should be. As the decisions get more complex, taking them becomes tougher and a lot of people falter at these integral moments.

This has a lot to do with how they’re raised. That’s why it’s important to prepare your children for life by giving them choices.

How does it help?

Giving your child choices helps develop their self-confidence. It’s normal to think that your child is better off being told what to do when they’re younger as they don’t know what is best for them; but raising them in an environment where they are constantly being told what to do acts in two ways-

• It makes them passive-aggressive as they feel like they are never allowed to do what they wish to. They begin resisting their parents and acting out in order to get what they what they want.

• They are under confident when it comes to making decisions and they carry this trait all through their lives.

What’s the solution?

An easy solution to this is to allow them to make small choices about their dinacharya (daily routine). Let them decide what clothes to wear, what toys to play with, the books they’d like to read, what gifts to buy, and what chores they wish to be responsible for. For instance, instead of allotting duties at random, ask them which they would rather do - lay the table before dinner or clean it after the meal is over. Let them make a pick and encourage their decision.

Raise your children to be individuals who play an active role in their own lives, and trust that as long as the sanskar (values) you have instilled in them are strong, they will make the right choices. Also, an important aspect to ensuring your kids make good choices is to be a role model for them. If they see their parents making wholesome and righteous choices, they will do the same.