Creating Independent Thinkers

Helping Children Make Good Decisions


As parents, we want our children to make good choices and have the “right” answers. But making decisions for our kids does not give them the practice they need for making decisions for themselves.

Decision making opportunities will strengthen the brain and actually make it work better. The brain is like a muscle and needs to be exercised. By using the brain through critical thinking exercises, the brain begins to function stronger and perform better. When it is ignored, the brain doesn’t develop optimally therefore losing some of its power to function. That’s what we mean by “use it or lose it”. But you can make a difference for your child. Provide lots of opportunities to exercise decision making and problem solving activities through questioning, playing games, and discussing life situations.



A simple exercise to use with young children to help exercise their brain is to give your child choices. For example, asking your child, “Do you want to wear the red shirt or the yellow one?” When you offer a choice, the child has to “think” about his answer. This simple activity stimulates the brain cells into action. Then as kids get older, you can give them more responsibility in decision making. Allow your child to work out a scheduling conflict when two events occur on the same date. Let your child decide which one to attend rather than you making the choice.



An allowance is another terrific way to give older kids practice with decision making. This becomes a powerful way to exercise the brain when a dilemma arises on how to spend the money or whether to save it for later. The point is to let your child wrestle with the decision and allow him/her to live with the consequences. The main thing for you as the parent to do is try to avoid resolving all of your child’s problems. You want to be supportive but give your child a chance to make minor mistakes and learn life’s lessons along the way.