The Blogspot of Beth Grosshans: When and How to Give Children Choices

Friday, January 18, 2019

When and How to Give Children Choices

Accomplished child psychologist Dr. Beth Grosshans retired from her private Princeton, New Jersey practice and now leads informative workshops and lectures on parenting, child development, and positive family dynamics. In her book Beyond Time Out: From Chaos to Calm, Dr. Beth Grosshans details several areas where family dynamics can become imbalanced, including during any decision-making process.

Giving children too many or inappropriate choices is a common parenting mistake that can inadvertently cause anxiety in children and lead to disruptive behaviors. In a misguided attempt to promote independence, parents may give children the power to make a decision that is beyond their cognitive or emotional capacity.

Also, parents may not be consistent with the types of choices a child can make, for example, allowing them to choose their dinner one night, but not the next. This can cause confusion for the child and result in boundary-testing behavior.

Instead, parents should only offer a child a choice between two to three options for age-appropriate decisions. If a child cannot grasp the implications of the decision, then it should be left to the parents to decide. Some examples of age-appropriate decisions include a three year old choosing one of three sweaters to wear, or a 10 year old deciding between setting the table or washing the dishes.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Beth Grosshans

After establishing her Flemington, New Jersey-based private practice in 1994, licensed clinical psychologist Beth Grosshans, PhD, assisted children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families with psychological assessments and interventions for over 15 years. Concurrently she worked as a private consultant, providing clinical training and seminars on child development issues for faculty members at local schools. Also serving as an instructor for the Princeton Center for Teacher Education during this period, Dr. Beth Grosshans taught the course Child Development: Infant, Toddler, and through the Elementary Years at the Princeton Montessori School.

Since retiring from clinical practice, Dr. Beth Grosshans has concentrated on writing for and speaking to parents and educators about child development issues and discipline. She co-wrote the book Beyond Time-Out: From Chaos to Calm, in which she introduced the concept of imbalanced family power, contradicting prevailing child-centric notions of effective parenting and emphasizing the importance of exerting parental leadership and authority to prevent unruliness and anxiety in children.

Dr. Beth Grosshans received a BA in psychology from the University of Cincinnati and earned both an MA in psychology and a PhD in clinical child psychology from Ohio State University. Under Habib Davanloo, MD, she has also completed several intensive professional training courses in Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy. She is a retired member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Psychological Association Foundation and of the American Psychological Association.