Choices, choices

As Jake becomes more and more verbal, both in terms of speech production and his understanding (there is no greater feeling for me when I feel like I'm having a proper conversation with him!), I can see his personality growing and developing in front of our very eyes. Fortunately, this is a child who is filled with fun, a cheeky sense of humour and an already keen sense of fairness and sharing.

The teacher in me, however, sees this ability to interact through words as an opportunity to lay down some rules and boundaries, even at this early age. We're a few weeks away from Jake turning 3 and so far (knock on wood!) haven't seen much of the "terrible twos". Of course, Jake has shown that he is often late to developmental milestones, so it may all be ahead of us. However, I like to think that our choice led approach to situations of potential conflict have reduced stress. For example, in the morning, he gets to pick out which t-shirt he's going to wear that day, or a choice about which coat he's going to wear. By introducing the choice about the coat, there's no negotiation about whether he's going to wear it or not. Bath time is a great example. He's never keen on the thought of having a bath (even though he loves it when he's in), so our nightly conversation goes like this:
Me: Jake, it's bath time
Jake: No bath time, it's playing time
Me: Do you want a bath or a shower?
Jake: Bath please Daddy

And up we go. If he's feeling belligerent, I threaten him with a shower and he'll then choose a bath to avoid the horror of a shower. But it's still a choice, and one that he feels in control of.

This approach means that there's very few times that we have to put our foot down with him, and even those situations can be turned into choices, such as who's car we're going to take or which soft toy he gets to bring food shopping. It works well for us, and it helps Jake to feel in control of the world around him through choices that we're happy with him making. Long may it continue.