Freedom of choice in children

During childhood and especially in the transition to adolescence, our children begin to experience their own concerns and to externalize some opposition to the authority of their parents.

This leads to an increasing demand for freedom of choice among children, who seek to feel responsible for choosing what suits them best or adapts to their tastes and needs.

A proper management of this situation by parents can be very significant when it comes to leading children towards an environment where they can enjoy that freedom of choice with constant supervision and guidance from parents, who in the end are the ones who have the experience and expertise necessary to prevent possible mistakes to be made along the way.

During the development of this guide, we will be addressing some of the most important aspects related to freedom of choice in children and how to learn to handle this situation, to achieve emotional stability in our dealings with the child.

Choosing within supervision

It is clear that there is a great difference between the experience of a parent and that of a child. Both roles must be well distinguished, since maturity at our age is not the same as when we are children. Letting our child make all the decisions that could affect his or her personal development, rather than being contraindicated, would be irresponsible on our part. However, there are ways to grant some freedom to the child without this infringing on his or her personal interests.

The ways to which we refer are those of choice within supervision. The idea is that it is our child who experiences the responsibility of choosing what he/she wants, always within a group of pre-established options. The parent's supervision is based precisely on the fact that it is the parent who makes the proposals conditioned to the satisfaction of the child's best interest.

In this relationship, of choosing with supervision, we manage to offer a series of solutions that lead to a positive result, being the child the one who ends up choosing the one that best suits his or her tastes.

Negotiation

The child's choice, under the parent's supervision, may also have certain setbacks. It is possible that our child may oppose all the proposals that we have made, so the remaining alternatives would be to impose our authority or negotiate to achieve the goal set. It would be naive to believe that we will never have to make use of authority as a method to impose our will, sometimes there is only that way, but it is possible to take more sensible ways so that the effects are better perceived.

When we impose our authority, we get what we want done, but we will not have our child's approval or satisfaction to give us feedback. This leads to tasks being done unwillingly or we encounter reproaches along the way. Negotiation, on the other hand, allows us to get closer to our child's interests without losing sight of what we want to achieve. Negotiating achieves the same results as imposing ourselves, with the difference that the child will perceive that we are willing to listen to him/her and try to satisfy his/her demands as much as possible.

Try to focus on the points of agreement to formulate proposals that are to the liking of both, in cases where the wills are not aligned, try giving in on the aspects of least interest to you, so that you get him to give in on those that are really important.