Everyone has lived without making poor choices during our growth journey. Making mistakes is natural and part and parcel of almost every human. And for some of us, certain mistakes are so life-changing and impactful that we wish we could turn back the clock to correct them.
Everyone has at least one or two — maybe more — things they wish they could go back in time to change. While we know this is impossible, we will still ponder it and imagine how things might be diferent if we have made another choice.
Some people wish they had started saving money when they were younger instead of spending everything on things that may not be as useful. Others lament they could have taken another path and had a diferent outcome in life.
All these thoughts lead us to want to help our children make more intelligent choices. Every parent wants our children to do well and achieve their happiness.
How can you help your children make more intelligent choices? Try these:
- Allow your children to make mistakes. It might seem contradictory that allowing children to make mistakes will help them make fewer mistakes in the future. But mistakes are opportunities to learn and help us to be better.
- Children are naturally curious; this helps them learn. Many adults lose that curiosity. Instead, they prefer facts instead of exploring. Allow your children to explore. Let them make mistakes. Let them learn from those mistakes.
- A child who learns from his mistakes gains insight, develops confdence, and learns to think outside the box. This confdence can pay of later when they face a challenge they didn’t anticipate and need to think on their feet.
- Include your kids in daily decisions. For example, include your kids if you’re making dinner plans with your spouse. Get them to accompany you to pick things up for the meal. Let them have a voice too.
- Every week, let them choose one place where they want to go or thing they want to do. Doing these things can help your children learn problem-solving skills.
- Encourage them to nurture the habit of pausing to observe a situation before speaking or acting. A person who speaks before thinking tends to make mistakes—however, someone who waits to think before acting is more likely to make wise choices.
- When they pause before acting, they learn an essential life skill. They won’t always be perfect, but at least they’ll have a head start on cultivating positive habits.
- Don’t shield them from the real world. As parents, we may tend to protect our kids from less favorable occurrences. However, this can lead to a harmful habit of too much protection. Our children may be unable to learn the situational skills needed for difcult circumstances.
- It’s common to fnd adults who fnd it hard to adapt because they don’t anticipate the world’s hardships. When you expose your child to the world, you allow them to learn to embrace and cope with difculties instead of avoiding them.
- Train them to have good moral values. An excellent way to guide your child in healthy decision-making is by basing decisions on solid morals. A child with values like kindness, generosity, and integrity is more likely to make good decisions and be respected.
- To set your kid on the right path, give him more autonomy and notice how he reacts to diferent situations. Then, when your child makes a mistake, don’t lecture, or punish them. Instead, guide them on their shortfall and how to learn from their
We make mistakes as we interact with other people and in our decisions. However, it’s essential to recognize how errors can beneft our lives. Parents should remember that they can trust their children with some of their choices because they will help them learn life skills and develop good moral values.
