Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Make a choice

Someone recently told me that the most effective strategy with toddlers was to give them choices - allowing them to choose between 2 things gives them a feeling of being in control, while providing you with an outcome that you desire. Makes sense, right? So here's how that went this morning:

Me: "Okay, Josh, I'm going to give you a choice. Choice #1, you can take a bath, or choice #2, you can take a nap."
Josh: "Choice #3 - I watch a show on TV and I don't have any other choices."

So much for that.

4 comments:

daedra said...

I use this and it works. When adam refuses to go to sleep I say you have 2 choices: either I rub your back or I leave. He will usually repeat what HE wants 5 more times while I repeat the options 5 more times until he gives in and chooses to get his back rubbed. I think you have to make sure that one of the options is something they enjoy. If J doesn't enjoy baths or naps it's not gonna work!

Sarah said...

He usually does enjoy a bath, and ultimately that's what he did, but not without MUCH disagreement about our preferred course of action...

daedra said...

he'll get the hang of it after a while... as usual, give it time

Danafesto said...

You could google "choice theory"...maybe you have. I'm joking, only sort of. I laughed so hard when I read this post. I deal with this all day. And I agree with Daedra. One choice has to be tempting. And you have to reiterate until it's habit. I also have to tell 1st graders that they are "my people" so I create their choices, *then* they get to choose; There are other occasions where they create the choices for "their people" (dolls, turtles, army guys, video game heroes). They seem to understand the hierarchy of the levels. But I guess they are 5. How old is little guy in question? Sometimes I give a time frame for the decision. If they know they have 5 minutes or 10 minutes (or by the end of this whatever)to make their choice before I overrule, that sometimes works. I let them use all that time for experimental questioning and dodging, but they know the whole time they are indulging in subtle procrastination that when the time is up I will make the choice for them, if they don't willingly choose one of my options. But hey, above all, it's a wild game--use whatever you can. By any means necessary. Well, almost.