"This or that" is so important for children in general! I was honestly a little surprised that you weren't already using it, since you seem like such an intentional and hands on mom! My son isn't quite old enough to fully understand yet, but we still give him options all the time, even if he doesn't really understand what he's choosing, we want him to be able to decide just a little tiny bit for himself.
We also let our son choose between two options. When it comes to potty training, he gets to choose between going outside or using his potty. We also let him do certain things on his own. For example, he grabs his socks after getting dressed or buckles himself when we sit down for meals. It takes a little longer but he is so proud of himself!!
We gave lots of choices too, and it definitely helped! With potty training too, we realized we had to stop always asking our son if he needed to go. It just annoyed him. So we’d check in every now and then, like before leaving the house, but otherwise let him just tell us. He was mostly potty trained in a week, and now a couple months later only has an accident once every couple weeks. We also started off with incentives like candy and shows, then gradually pulled back on them until he was confident enough using the potty that we told him he didn’t need them anymore because he was a big boy!
That's a fair point. I find that since my son is fairly young to be potty-trained, if he's out and about he gets caught up in things and doesn't remember to use the bathroom, so going with him helps! But at home he is better at going by himself.
The "Communist Choice" where both options are what daddy wants is always good.
But otherwise, unfortunately, my experience through 4 kids was....every kid is different. The magic bullet for the first kid, never worked on any of the next three. When I figured out #2, didn't work for #3. Just need to read your kid.
The weirdest part about all of that comes in hindsight. You realize your kid had SO much personality, and who they were as a toddler, makes SO much more sense once they can express themselves at 8 and 10 and 17 years old. My daughter's tantrums as a baby were from the same style of situations as when she was in late elementary school: She hates transitioning from one activity to the next, period. If she's just warned a few minutes in advance, "hey sweetie, you'll need to put the toys/books/video game down in 15 minutes, it'll be dinner time (at 6pm like it is every night like clockwork anyway)," is enough to get her mentally prepared for a shift. My other kids? Never a problem.
This is something I did with my firstborn for awhile, but I noticed it was making her anxious, so I had to pull it back. I'm a fairly flexible mom, so usually when she wants to decide on things I roll with it when it's reasonable, so perhaps when I was intentionally asking this or that she felt too insecure, too much pressure, and the loneliness of having to make all the decisions. As soon as I realized this and started making the small decisions for her, she grew in her happiness level. It's cool to read this story about your son though, and I think it's an awesome way to give your kid a sense of freedom.
This is something we absolutely did with our kiddos. We start doing it at just over a year when they start having food preferences. My 18 month old absolutely loves running to the fridge with me and picking out food to eat. I show him 2 options of fruit, meat, grains, etc. it’s generally a guaranteed that he’ll eat most of what’s on his plate when we do it. Kids need structure but the big independence bout toddlers and preschoolers go through necessitates growth through choice.
"This or that" is so important for children in general! I was honestly a little surprised that you weren't already using it, since you seem like such an intentional and hands on mom! My son isn't quite old enough to fully understand yet, but we still give him options all the time, even if he doesn't really understand what he's choosing, we want him to be able to decide just a little tiny bit for himself.
We definitely used it before, but not at such a high volume!
We also let our son choose between two options. When it comes to potty training, he gets to choose between going outside or using his potty. We also let him do certain things on his own. For example, he grabs his socks after getting dressed or buckles himself when we sit down for meals. It takes a little longer but he is so proud of himself!!
That's awesome!
We gave lots of choices too, and it definitely helped! With potty training too, we realized we had to stop always asking our son if he needed to go. It just annoyed him. So we’d check in every now and then, like before leaving the house, but otherwise let him just tell us. He was mostly potty trained in a week, and now a couple months later only has an accident once every couple weeks. We also started off with incentives like candy and shows, then gradually pulled back on them until he was confident enough using the potty that we told him he didn’t need them anymore because he was a big boy!
That's a fair point. I find that since my son is fairly young to be potty-trained, if he's out and about he gets caught up in things and doesn't remember to use the bathroom, so going with him helps! But at home he is better at going by himself.
The "Communist Choice" where both options are what daddy wants is always good.
But otherwise, unfortunately, my experience through 4 kids was....every kid is different. The magic bullet for the first kid, never worked on any of the next three. When I figured out #2, didn't work for #3. Just need to read your kid.
The weirdest part about all of that comes in hindsight. You realize your kid had SO much personality, and who they were as a toddler, makes SO much more sense once they can express themselves at 8 and 10 and 17 years old. My daughter's tantrums as a baby were from the same style of situations as when she was in late elementary school: She hates transitioning from one activity to the next, period. If she's just warned a few minutes in advance, "hey sweetie, you'll need to put the toys/books/video game down in 15 minutes, it'll be dinner time (at 6pm like it is every night like clockwork anyway)," is enough to get her mentally prepared for a shift. My other kids? Never a problem.
This is something I did with my firstborn for awhile, but I noticed it was making her anxious, so I had to pull it back. I'm a fairly flexible mom, so usually when she wants to decide on things I roll with it when it's reasonable, so perhaps when I was intentionally asking this or that she felt too insecure, too much pressure, and the loneliness of having to make all the decisions. As soon as I realized this and started making the small decisions for her, she grew in her happiness level. It's cool to read this story about your son though, and I think it's an awesome way to give your kid a sense of freedom.
This is something we absolutely did with our kiddos. We start doing it at just over a year when they start having food preferences. My 18 month old absolutely loves running to the fridge with me and picking out food to eat. I show him 2 options of fruit, meat, grains, etc. it’s generally a guaranteed that he’ll eat most of what’s on his plate when we do it. Kids need structure but the big independence bout toddlers and preschoolers go through necessitates growth through choice.