Unison Parenting Blog: How Asking Questions Helps Your Child Make Better Decisions

When my children would ask me for permission to go on some outing or to some social engagement, I would ask questions. A lot of questions, like: "Who will be there? What will you be doing? How are you getting there? What time does it start and end?" Those are the basics, but depending on the request, I often asked many more.

Until my kids could satisfactorily answer all my questions ("I don't know" was a very bad answer), then I would not give permission. Sometimes I sent them away with more questions after I heard their answers.

This process annoyed them so much. But it also helped them so much.

Over time, my kids realized they wouldn't be allowed to participate until they had all the answers. To save time in the approval process, they started anticipating my questions and preparing for them in advance. Of course, they would forget some or not expect other questions, but they learned from each occasion when my permission was either slow or denied altogether.

This meant that their preparation process continuously approved. My children asked better questions of friends. They helped organize social gatherings that were more acceptable to parents. They even became more suspicious of friends or near-friends who didn't have good answers.

And overall, my children learned how to make better decisions because they learned from frustration and example how to evaluate opportunities.

We parents need to cultivate good decision-making in our children. That means allowing them to make decisions but with guardrails. Some decisions come with acceptable consequences for failure, while others would cause unacceptable consequences if things go haywire. As parents, we need to permit them to grow from suffering acceptable consequences while protecting them from unacceptable ones.