Monday, May 13, 2013

Parenting and Teaching My Kid About the Power of Choice

Tonight I found myself teaching my son about the Power of Choice in a manner that he can understand and apply.  Remember my son is at present 5 years old.

It started when I saw him not finishing his dinner and when I asked, he told me that Dad gave him the Ipad to play with.  I told him that just because Dad did that, does not mean that he has to play with the Ipad, that he actually has a choice.  So I started asking, "Which is the better choice for you?  Finish dinner or play with Ipad?" and he "chose", "Finish dinner".

So I went on with the game and almost like a test, wanted to see which he will choose.  We had so much fun but most importantly, during that fun game, I was able to teach him the power of choosing the better choice and checking the choices he will make when presented with options.  Later that night I was able to use a couple of the questions I posed to him to enable me to put him to bed a littler early and have him listen to me much more attentively.

Here are the questions we played with --- please feel free to try this with your kid and hope that you receive the same blessings I did when I connected with my son using this game:


  1. Milk or Soda?  (My son's answer:  Milk)
  2. Water or Juice?  (My son's answer:  Water)
  3. Brown Rice or White Rice?   (My son's answer:  White Rice -- I then took the opportunity to explain to him that Brown rice is better than white rice and why)
  4. After play time, leave the mess behind or clean up?   (My son's answer:  Clean up)
  5. Before eating, don't wash hands, or wash hands?  (My son's answer:  Wash hands)
  6. After potty, wash hands or don't wash hands? (My son's answer:  Wash hands)
  7. When changing clothes, leave the clothes on the floor or put in hamper?  (My son's answer:  Hamper)
  8. After coming home from school, spend time with Mama and Dada or play with Ipad (My son's answer:  spend time with mama and dada)
  9. Ipad or read books?  (My son's answer:  Read books)
  10. After waking up in the morning, go the living room and play ipad, or go to mama and dada and say good morning with hugs and kisses  (My son's answer:  go to mama/dada and say GM with hugs and kisses)
  11. When asking for something, say politely with please or just ask without being polite?  (My son's answer:  ask politely)
  12. Go to bed early or go to bed late?  (My son's answer: go to bed early)
  13. When Mommy is asking for help, ignore and continue to play with Ipad or listen to Mommy right away?  (My son's answer:  Listen to Mommy right away)
  14. When you need to go potty, hold it for the longest time or go potty right away?  (My son's answer:  go potty right away)
You get the idea right?  It isn't that hard and these are choices that he has to learn to make at an early age. If I don't give him the tools or teach him, how will he know?

Love you all~