Preferences, preferences and more preferences!! Children are full of preferences! But let’s be real...so are we. We’re all human. So we all have preferences.
How do we balance it when our preferences don’t align with our child’s preferences?
Consider if this is a personal opinion situation where your preference may be different than your child’s. Consider trusting your child to know their preferences (or at least trust them to learn them through trial and error). You can give non- judgmental ideas to consider but ultimately it’s best to accept their decision (if time and situation allows). You can always use it as a teachable moment. They will also grow to consider your advice more carefully next time when they start to see for themselves that your advice is worthy. Otherwise they will continue to question whether or not you are right if they never get to experience the alternative for themselves; but seeing you were right, even if they won’t admit it, will help them to regard your opinion more highly next time. Examples of preferences may be using a fork to eat cereal, ketchup on fruit, shorts on a chilly day, pajamas at the grocery store, cold water for a bath, etc.
Can you drop the rope and embrace your child’s preferences? Just say YES!
