I recently read an article (I can’t remember where) that talked about raising happy kids. All of us want happy kids, right?  One of the things the article mentioned was the importance of giving your child choices, especially younger kids (say under 10) who have little or no control over their lives.  This point really stood out for me.  Kids really don’t have much control over their lives, do they?  They are told what to eat and when, at school everything is structured and decided for them, they attend extra curricular activities that perhaps parents choose for them. They are told what time to go to bed, what time to get up, when to shower, when to do homework and the list goes on.  While some of this stuff has to be decided for them (if I left mine to decide when to shower, it would be never!) I’ve realised it is possible to give them more control.

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