Why do we make choices for our children? Why do we give advice and try to control them? Watch this video chat and find out how to let your children learn to make choices.
Timestamps:
00:00 A mother's experience of letting her child make choices and choosing to love her daughter.
00:17 Why we make choices for our child.
02:18 Normally we control our kids instead of just making suggestions.
04:17 An example of not controlling what a kid wears.
07:35 An example of dealing with a situation where you might feel annoyed so that there is no annoyance.
Transcript:
Why We Make Choices for Our Children
A mother wrote to me and said:
“I’m beginning to see how often I have taken my kids' opportunities for learning away from them. Been doin’ it for a long time. I make choices for them, or give them advice, or control them, instead of letting them learn.”
**Nearly every parent does that. Why do we?
- We reason that we know better—and we do have more experience—so we tend to take the opportunity to share our brilliance with our children. Sometimes we’re “trying to help,” but often that is an excuse used to rationalize our need for control and feeling more powerful.
- To complicate things, we also genuinely want to help them learn things.
- We want to help them avoid mistakes.
Letting a Child Make Choices
Mom: My daughter Haley and I were sleeping in a tent in the backyard last night.
**At least on the surface, that is such a lovely thing to do. We could all learn from it. Children love one-on-one time, and here you’re willing to sleep out in a tent instead of in the comfort of your bed. Precious moments. Bind us together.
Mom: I thought she would be cold later at night, she was short sleeved and just had her blanket. I was long sleeved with a thick sleeping bag. I started talking about it, she said she would be fine. So I stopped.
**Astonishing. Normally, we don’t offer suggestions to our kids. We CONTROL them. “Put on your coat.” “Button up your shirt.” “Comb your hair.” We THINK we’re helping, but if our suggestions aren’t clearly to prevent an injury that child couldn’t foresee, we’re controlling.
Example of NON-controlling suggestions: teaching child to drive, how to run a chain saw, etc—of course dependent on our attitude. But we make suggestions about clothing color coordination and so many things that are simply OUR preference, NOT necessary to their health or well-being. Way to go.
Mom: At this point it would just turn into me nagging and repeating the same thing more forcefully, to make her listen, to make her do what I think she should do. I would start controlling.
**YES, and it looks so innocent, because we’re being “helpful.” We reason, “If she’s cold, she’ll catch a cold (myth).” No, and even if she did, better than feeling controlled. At early age, we quit telling kids to put on more clothing. We knew they’d get cold and say something: “I’m cold.” Me: “I’m not. Anybody else?”
Mom: She had the information she needed. Now she needs to learn from her own experience. If she gets cold at night, if she catches a cold—that is still better than me forcing her, becoming pushy, controlling, taking away her free choice, putting a kind of violence between us.
**Nicely said. Controlling is an emotional violence and violation.
Mom: And — she survived the night just fine.
**Amazing how things in the world really CAN work out without our controlling every step.
Mom: She asked that I wake her up when I get up in the morning, she wanted to come with me.
**That is absolutely darling. She ASKED to spend time with you, preferring that over sleep. Treasure such moments.
Mom: I planned to get up early and do some work, so I asked: "Don't you want to sleep longer? You don't HAVE TO get up early." - "No, I want to come with you."
**Beautiful. Probably could have done without the additional question and information, which demonstrate doubt in her ability to make a decision.
Making a Choice to Spend Time with Her Daughter
Mom: Okay, so morning comes, and we get up and go to the kitchen and she is a chatter box, she wants to show me her earring collection, and talk forever, and I realize I am not going to make a quick get-away. I could, but I choose not to. I feel she is trying to feel close to me.
**She is feeling your love for her. She wants all she can get. Sweet.
Mom: And I realize she is dear to me, and I just don't want to get away. I need to do some work, though. Usually, I would get annoyed. In the past, when there was a conflict between two things I wanted to do—spend time with someone but be somewhere else—I would get annoyed at the inconvenience of having to make a decision and having to explain it.
**Beautifully said. Exactly. We have to make choices all day, and OFTEN we feel annoyed at the people who need to be informed. Even when it’s not their fault at all. We can be annoyed as a defense.
Mom: I feel the conflict - she wants/ needs me, I want/ need to do something else - and I realize it is an inconvenience, but I am not annoyed. Because I feel her need for my love and time, and I love her. I have space in my heart. I have forced myself to spend time before, in this kind of situation, but it did not feel the same, not for me, and I am sure not for us.
**Yep
Mom: So I spend some time just admiring her earring collection, she may get her ears pierced for her 10th birthday; she is sitting on my lap. I also prepare some breakfast and church potluck stuff. Then we head to my office together - I work, she is reading. It is quiet time.
This is the first time I am understanding/ experiencing annoyance vs. inconvenience. I am happy. I did not cut her off or hurt her feelings, shove her aside - I feel the heart strings between Haley and me are humming.
She reminded me of me - at the end of our Skype call, when it is time for you to go, sometimes you spend more time loving me, because I am wanting/ needing it, and you are not annoyed.
You have said before "proof that I love you" - this is proof - I can love Haley like this.
**Yes, you really can.
