Decision making is something all of us do daily. Many decisions your teen faces are not complex - what to eat for breakfast or wear to school for example. But even decisions which are simple can have negative consequences if poor choices are made. Wearing clothes to school that do not comply to the school dress code can cause your teen to have school problems as an example.
Our teens are faced with many decisions that are more complex. Which classes to take in school, how to spend time in electives, who to hang out with at school, what kind of job to try to find - the list goes on. How do we help our teen with practicing good decision making?
I think the first thing we should do as parents is to try to reduce any anxiety our teen has about these decisions. I have seen some teens who are almost tied up in knots with anxiety due to their fears that if they don't do everything just right that their future will be a bad one. If we can reduce the anxiety we can help our teens see that there is almost always more than one possibility with decision making. Practicing good decision making means helping our teens generate many possible options and deciding which one makes the most sense to them.
I like to think of decision making as a puzzle to be solved. If you can approach this in a way to make decision making interesting, you can engage your teen and help him learn one of his most important life skills.
Dr. Debra
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