Helping Your Teen Make Decisions
It can seem confusing when you want to help your teen make a decision, but you know you shouldn’t give them advice (you can read more here), which essentially means try very hard not to tell them what to do. Let them make their own decision and reap the benefits of it’s consequences good or bad, but how do you get them to make the decision themselves?
It requires a lot of listening and then you use the information you just heard to help your teen make their decision. Probably a simple way to do this is to ask them to do a Pro/Con list. Ask your teen to take a sheet of paper and fold it in half with one side being the pro, or things in favor of the decision and ,the other side being the con or against list.
This exercise can illustrate the side with the most reasons, which will visually demonstrate the decision making process, while helping your teen develop critical thinking and decision-making skills. These life skills are vital to inoculating your teen against the consequences that are a result of poorly thought out decisions.
Questions that can encourage them to think about their decision include, but is not limited to:
- Wow, you have a lot of reasons in that column, can you go through them with me?
- Yep! That looks like a good reason to do the ___.
- Tell me more about why that reason is in a pro category?
- Well, that looks like a good list and you seem to really have considered everything. I’m sure you’ll make a very informed decision.
Developing good decision-making skills is really the reason you don’t want to tell them what to do; they won’t develop the critical thinking skills that allow them to make decisions if they don’t practice it with you.
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good information. My teen sister is always getting into trouble because she does not take advice kindly. She keeps telling mom and me “Thanks for the advice, but it’s my life and I need to live it on my own”. I believe that you should live your own life, but you should also listen to those who have been around longer as it will save you from wasted time, pain and sorrows.