Lightbulb moment: Give her a choice

Blue or red?

It all started with underwear. When Emory found her rebuttal voice, I was toast. No more muscling our way through getting dressed and putting on underwear while distracting her with hair ties. Her answer was “no” — she wasn’t putting it on. I was increasingly left scratching my head wondering when I was going to leave the house again.

I’m assuming I’m not alone here. And I’m sure there are countless ways to deal with this scenario that date to the dark ages. One day I had an accidental epiphany and said, exasperated, “fine do you want to wear the Mickey Mouse pair instead of Elmos?” Low and behold, I was back in the club. Mickey, it turned out, made the world okay that day. Immediate adoption of underwear.

I started to experiment with the idea of simple choices, with 2-3 options, for everything I wanted to get done. My strategy was to present choices where both options steered us in the general direction I wanted to go — such as out of the house, up for a bath, into the carseat, eating a reasonably healthy meal.

Game-changer.

I did some quick google research on this topic, so as not to assume this is evidence-based practice here. Fortunately, the science backs it up! A fellow mom, Michal Maimaran, conducted research on the virtues of choices for children when she noticed parents at the playground offering what actually seemed like too many choices. Susie Allen summarized the study last year in a post for the Kellogg School of Business. The basic findings were that too many choices had a negative impact on a kid’s ability both to choose and also to be confident and happy in the choice; but that a small number of choices, such as the Mickey-Elmo underwear tradeoff, stimulated decision-making and satisfaction with the choice.

To get the wheels spinning, types of choices I use regularly include: swing or slide, apple or pear, sandals or sneakers, purple toothbrush or green toothbrush, polar bear or husky for the car, 1 movie or 5 more minutes of puzzles before bed.

To be clear, no one has endless time to be offering and negotiating choices with 2 year olds. Sometimes the sheer force of will and the original elbow grease is the only way when the clock is ticking. But if possible, allowing extra time for a choice or two has changed our parent-kid execution for the better.