The following is taken from a live Q&A with parents who participated in Kim’s recent webinar, The Soul of Discipline. This particular question addresses the issue of young children and choices.
Question: When my son was two, I really used the 2-choice strategy – i.e., “Would you like this choice or that choice?”
…It seemed to work well at that age. I always gave two minor choices, both of which I was fine with, like a “banana or apple” type of thing. Somewhere around age three, it stopped working so well, so I stopped using it. I’m curious to know how that fits into the rest of this. Thanks!
Kim says:
There have been some folk who are real fans of limited choices. However, so many parents have had the outcome you have described. The effectiveness wears off or the child pushes hard to expand the range. Sometimes, it leads ot the child demanding more choices about more important things. One parent described the limited choice strategy as a “Pandora’s box.”
My advice to parents who wish to offer limited choices has been to shift the dynamic from:
“Which cereal would you like, the organically grown gluten free flakes or the hemp based stevia sweetened granola?” to….
“You may choose between the….”
This phrase, “You may choose…” implies that the adult is allowing a small choice, not that the child is taking the right to make a choice. If the choice does not go well, the adult can simply move into…
”Oh dear, I can see I will have to help work this out.”