‘Giving choices’ is a hot tool in the respectful parenting world. In the scripts, it usually goes like this: Child: “I want a snack!” Parent: “OK! Would you like an apple or a banana?” Child: “A banana, please!” And the parent hands over the banana. But when you actually try it in your own home, it usually looks more like this: Your child: “I want a snack!” You: “OK! Would you like an apple or a banana?” Your child: “I want cookies!” WHY IS THAT?! Why does it never ‘work’ the way it’s supposed to? Why doesn’t our child follow the script? There’s a simple and easy reason, and in this episode I break it down - and teach you the effective tool to use instead of giving choices. Jump to highlights:(00:54) Many parenting coaches recommend giving children choices as a way to get them tocooperate. (02:43) The effectiveness of using choices to our children(05:47) Reasons why giving choices makes us lose the possibility of meeting both of our needs(08:01) How using choices motivates children to do the things they wouldn’t want to do(09:00) Why choices teach children consequences(09:40) Benefits of using true empathy(10:26) Giving choices to negotiate how children will do a chore/task(11:55) The use of rewards to motivate children fails to consider both the child’s and parent’s needs,leading to resentment and missed opportunity for making real choices(13:28) Giving choices as a win-win situation(14:05) The choices parents give often do not meet the child’s needs(17:08) Distinguishing between needs and strategies(19:01) The importance of meeting both our and our children’s needs(20:34) Ben shares his struggles before joining the Setting Limits workshop(22:55) Ben shares how effective the tools he learned in the Setting Limits workshop(26:29) Deon shares her experience after joining the Setting Limits workshop(27:01) An open invitation to join the Setting Loving (&Effective!) Limits workshop Join us for the FREE Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshopDon’t forget - the FREE Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshop is here! If you choose our self-directed FlexPath option, you can start right NOW, and get a new module as soon as you finish the previous one. Or if you want me to hold your hand every step of the way, the Guided Path option starts on Wednesday April 26. There’s even an option to sign up for suuuuper cheap group coaching calls with me if you’d like to do that after you enroll. Other episodes referenced in this episode086: Playing to Win: How does playing sports impact children? https://yourparentingmojo.com/sports/ 170: How to stop procrastinating with Dr. Fuschia Sirois. https://yourparentingmojo.com/procrastination 075: Should we go ahead and heap rewards on our kid? https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/rewards/ KELLY PETERSON (00:03)Hi, This is Kelly Peterson from Chicago, Illinois. There's no other resource out there quite like Your Parenting Mojo, which doesn't just tell you about the latest scientific research on parenting and child development, but puts it into context for you as well so you can decide whether and how to use this new information. If you'd like to get new episodes in your inbox along with a free infographic on 13 Reasons Your Child Isn't Listening To You - And What To Do About Each One, sign up at YourParentingMojo.com/subscribe. If you'd like to start a conversation with someone about this episode, or you know someone who would find it useful, please do forward it to them. Thank you so much. JEN LUMANLAN (00:54)Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. It seems like almost every respectful parenting coach tells parents that one of the big secrets to getting your child to cooperate with you is to give them choices. Not too many choices - ideally, just two, and you should make sure in advance that both of those choices are acceptable to you. And when you do it, your child will magically want to comply with you. JEN LUMANLAN (01:16)So here's how it usually goes in the scripts: The child says: "I want a snack!" The parent says: "Okay, would you like an apple or a banana?" And the child says: "A banana please!" And the parent hands over the banana. JEN LUMANLAN (01:29)I've actually seen this interaction in a video demonstration of how to use choices to get your child to cooperate. And if you want to increase their language skills as well, you should add: "You chose a BANANA! Here it is!" as you hand it over. JEN LUMANLAN (01:42)So now let's take this interaction out of the demo video and into your home. Your child says: "I want to snack." And you say: "Okay, would you like an apple or banana?" And your child says: "I want cookies!" JEN LUMANLAN (01:56)How come the children in the scenarios never respond like this? How come the scenarios never address what you're supposed to do when your child says this, since our children pretty rarely respond to accept one of the choices we give them? And why does this happen? JEN LUMANLAN (02:11)Well, let's break down how we're told to use choices. I'm going to use an example from a parenting coach I'm not going to name because otherwise I mostly respect their work. I'm sure you could check the article down if you put your mind to it - It's pretty short, so I'm actually going to read it to you. JEN LUMANLAN (02:24)At the top of the article there's a caption of an adult and a child high-fiving, which is captioned: "Do you want to go to bed now or in five minutes? Five minutes? Okay, do we have an agreement that in five minutes you'll go to bed no matter what?" And we aren't told what the child's response is, but I suppose we're to assume the child says "Yes, certainly." JEN LUMANLAN (02:43)Okay, so now moving into the article, why does giving choices work so effectively? Because it's a win-win solution. You're offering only choices that are okay with you, so you're happy. She gets to pick one that's okay with her, so she's happy. You sidestep the power struggle, because you aren't making her do something; she is choosing. The child is in charge, within your parameters. No one likes to be forced to do something. Here, because she chooses, she cooperates. JEN LUMANLAN (03:10)So how do you use this magic wand? 1. You have limited choices. Make them as palatable as possible to the child, but eliminate any options that are unacceptable to you. 2. For young children or any child who is easily overwhelmed, an either/or choice works best. "We have to leave now. Do you want to put on your shoes yourself or do you want me to put them on for you?" 3. As children get older (and this is point number 3) choices get more complicated. "You can quit soccer if you want, but what sport or physical activity do you think you'd like to try? You need to choose one physical activity." 4. Choices can be used to help kids learn to manage themselves. "As soon as your homework is done, I'll help you carve that pumpkin. Your choice, but I know you want to start on the pumpkin as soon as we can." He has the choice to procrastinate on his homework, but you're helping him motivate himself to tackle it now. 5. Choices can teach children consequences. "You know your piano recital is coming up. Extra practice will help you feel more confident, but that's your choice." Don't offer choices you can't live with, of course. If you aren't willing to let her make a fool of herself at the recital, you may need to help her structure her practice effectively. 6. Remember that empathy doubles the effectiveness of giving choices. Empathy helps the child feel understood, so he's less upset and less resistant. That means he's more likely to actually be able to make a choice and move on.

JEN LUMANLAN (04:30)You might think of giving choices as Parenting Aikido. Instead of meeting your child's resistance with force – which creates a power struggle, and, ultimately a more resistant child – you affirm his right to some control, but within the bounds you set. The result: A happier, more cooperative child, who knows you're on his side. And who gets good at making healthy choices! JEN LUMANLAN (04:50)Okay, so let's break this article down. A key moment comes right in step 1 where we're only giving limited choices. We're making sure all of these choices are acceptable to us, but we aren't addressing whether all - or even any - of the choices are acceptable to the child. I can't over-emphasize the implications of this. When we're saying that the solutions we're offering are acceptable to us, we're saying that they meet our needs. The approach of giving choices makes no such assumptions of children -- it really assumes they are NOT people with needs of their own, and thus, they will be amenable to whatever choices meet OUR needs, as long as these are remotely "palatable." Then we double down on this in Step 2, where we make sure to offer only two choices too young or easily overwhelmed children. In SOME circumstances, this might be our best approach but if we haven't first taken the time to understand whether ANY of the choices we're offering are acceptable to the child, reducing the options doesn't really help. JEN LUMANLAN (05:47)Moving on to point 3, choices DO get more complicated as children get older - but once again, in this example we're asserting our needs over the child's. We're telling them "You need to choose one physical activity," which is a really loaded statement. We might think that the parent's need here is to protect the child's health and wellness, and that may legitimately be it. But if you think waaay back to Episode 68 on Dr. Hilary Levy Friedman's book Playing to Win, we learned that sports doesn't just benefit children's health now. It also helps them to develop the ability to be a team player, can help them to get into a good college, possibly with a scholarship, signals characteristics about themselves to potential future employers. I vividly remember an anecdote in the book about a woman who explicitly said she hired an employee who had played on an ice hockey team because she thought it communicated a lot about how scrappy and persistent the candidate would be. So all of those ideas about resource scarcity and getting our children ahead in a dog-eat-dog world is the subtext of this fictitious parent's requirement that the child chooses a physical activity to do after school. If the child picked yoga, is there a physical activity, would the parent be happy? My guess is probably not. JEN LUMANLAN (06:59)So a parent who is insisting on one physical activity can start by doing a lot of self reflection to understand: why am I insisting on this? What am I afraid will happen if I don't exert this degree of control over my child? In this scenario, my guess would be that the parent is afraid of not being the best possible parent, and of not giving their child the best possible start in life, and taking one physical activity is a really important part of that. But assuming that is a path we want to take, and I would question whether it is, there are so many other ways of meeting those needs? What if the child was to do some sort of extracurricular activity that involves teamwork, like debate club, or working for the school newspaper, or a book club? What if they wanted to do a physical activity involving something they enjoyed, like going for walks with you, or hiking, or gardening? When we reduce these potential options down to "You need to choose one physical activity," we lose the possibility of meeting both of our needs. JEN LUMANLAN (08:01)Now we move on to using choices to motivate children to do things they otherwise wouldn't want to do. In this example, the child has the "choice" to do their homework now and start carving the pumpkin sooner, or to "procrastinate on" the homework and then they'll have to wait longer to carve the pumpkin. If you think much less far back to Episode 170, we learned that procrastination is not really about making a conscious choice or being lazy or anything else that we think of when we're thinking about procrastination. People who procrastinate do it as a self-regulatory strategy, to avoid feeling difficult emotions they think they'll feel when they do the activity, or because they think they'll feel more equipped to deal with the challenge tomorrow than they do today. When we use 'choices' to override our self-regulation capabilities, we aren't equipping our children with skills they'll need in the future; we're ignoring the very real challenges they're having right now. We're saying: I don't care why you're having a hard time with your homework; when you get it done. I'll reward you with my time and attention. JEN LUMANLAN (09:00)Now on to the fifth point, about choices teaching children consequences, with the assumption that more practice will "make the child feel more confident." Perhaps it will, or perhaps the child already feels confident, perhaps they are feeling worried about the recital and practicing reminds them of that worry, and they aren't feeling worried because they haven't practiced enough, but because they've never performed in front of an audience before, or because their performance clothes are really uncomfortable, or because they're feeling afraid that if they don't do well enough in your eyes, that you'll withdraw your love and approval. Once again, we miss all of that when we don't bother to try to understand why the child is choosing not to practice. JEN LUMANLAN (09:40)Then finally we're to use empathy, because it "helps the child to feel understood." ONE of the benefits of empathy is the person receiving the empathy feels understood. The other benefit of true empathy is that we understand the other person better. But we aren't really trying to do that here. It's sort of like we're offering the words to convey empathy with the goal of reducing the child's upset so they stop resisting. So we're essentially saying something like: "I can see that you're feeling sad. That must be really hard. Do you feel better now? Now what physical activity would you like to choose?" This is really manipulative, and if another adult did that to me, I would feel completely disconnected, and no more likely to make a choice that they wanted me to make than I was before. JEN LUMANLAN (10:26)Here's another example from another parenting coach: "There is an art to giving children and adolescents choices. As parents, we want to give our children the choice of how they do a task or chore, but not in the completion of the task or chore. The completion of the task is going to happen. This is never up for negotiation. What the parent and child can negotiate is how and possibly when the completion of the task happens. By giving children and adolescents ownership in the completion of tasks, they are able to gain a sense of responsibility, ownership, and independence. An example is the trash needs to be taken out. The parent says to the child, "The trash needs to be taken out. Do you want to do it now or when your show is over? Which do you choose?' Of course, the child will choose when the show is over. When the show is over, the parent can say, "Remember, you chose to take out the trash when the show was over. I appreciate you taking responsibility for the choice you made. Thanks."