As I write, my husband is laying on the floor, rough-housing with our two-year-old dog. I keep hearing “Ow!” from my husband, as the dog snaps for the ball or tramples all over him to get the desired toy. Every once-in-awhile, my husband gives the dog a stiff warning that the action “really hurts.” I find myself wondering if the dog understands anything much more than the fact that the game is delayed a bit. Then I find myself wondering if my husband understands that the dog does not think about his actions. He simply acts. If he wants to roughhouse, the dog will comply! Sometimes the choice is a simple “do or don’t do.”
Every choice counts. Every choice? My sock choice? Whether I brush my teeth first of floss first? What news channel I watch as I get ready. Yep. Every choice counts. They each have a consequence – good or bad. My socks will either bring comfort or cause discomfort. They might look great, or they might draw unwanted attention. Dentists definitely have an opinion on the order of flossing and brushing. And the news channel I watch can affect my political views, my knowledge or lack of knowledge of stories covered on other channels but not mine, and how I perceive a certain story. Every choice counts.
That’s huge! What a burden we bear?! Add to that the fact that the consequences of our choices can affect others around us, and we might have reason to fret.
But fretting does no good. We will inevitably make choices. Even the decision to sit and make no choices is a choice, and it will have consequences. How do we help our gifted kids navigate the waters of choice once they realize that all their choices count? The best way is to help them know that they will make some bad choices, but not all of those bad choices will carry a significant consequence. For example, if I always end my phone conversations with family with the words “I love you,” and one day I accidentally end my pizza order with the same, the consequence is not that big. A little confusion on the other end of the line, embarrassment and a quick hang-up on my end. And a convincing of someone else to go pick up my order! No big deal.
With society holding us so very responsible for every mistake we make with our choices, it can be difficult to show our kids that making wrong choices and learning through the consequences actually makes us better at making choices. I encourage you, parents, to not wait till your gifted kids are older to explain the consequences of their choices. They are smart kids. They can pick up the conversation. “You just hit the dog, and the dog bit you. What have you learned?” “Don’t hit the dog or he’ll hurt me.”
As your child matures, use fictional choices in a family conversation to let your kids test choices. A great vehicle is the “Would You Rather” game that is so popular. Would you rather accidentally eat a hair in your sandwich or have the wind blow someone’s spit onto your arm? Gross… to both of these. Encourage your child to think through which would actually be worse. If you can stomach it, your pre-teen will like that the subject is gross, but you two are actually rendering a judgement of which is worse based upon the evidence you each produce. Through this silliness, your child is learning to make better choices.
Besides explaining the consequences of choices, we as parents and authority figures for teens need to make sure kids experience consequences. I am appalled at the fact that there are groups of people out there who ascend upon a store and steal as much as they can carry, and no one does a thing. Kids run into our local convenience store all the time and steal items. No clerk follows them out. They’ve been told they’ll be fired if they try to be a hero. The kids are on tape; they’ll turn these over to the police. They don’t. Heck, when Wal-Mart first put in self-checkout lines, they lost millions of dollars due to stolen items. People forgot to scan items, some figured out how easy it was to hide items, and the company took a massive loss thanks to not holding customers accountable for their choices.
With such public displays of not holding people to the consequences of their actions, is it any wonder we have groups of people robbing a store with little or no repercussions?
If you don’t allow your child/teen to suffer the consequences of his/her choices, you are leading him to believe that there are none. That bubble will only last so long. There will come a day of reckoning. A potential prom date saying “no,” a law official arresting the child, a hospitalization… some kind of consequence that you the parent cannot fix. That’s a terrible time to learn that bad choices have bad consequences.
- Michelle