Choice

One day, my hubby and I brought our princess to IKEA at Damansara, PJ. While my hubby was choosing the light bulb, I overheard a conversation between a mother and a son (about 6-year-old boy). They were choosing a lamp for the boy's bedroom.

mum: Boy, what color do you want? 
boy: Many colors. All of them!
mum: No, you can only choose one!
boy: I want purple! No, I want pink! Yes, I want PINK!
mum: .....Why don't you choose green or yellow?
boy: But you told me that I can choose my own color. I want pink.
mum: ......


Well, in the end, the mother chose yellow. 

The conversation was interesting. A loving mother who wanted to be liberal, gave a chance for her son to choose his own color. Too bad, the son's choice was not what she wanted. Especially pink, a color which had been "fixed" for female in this world. In the end, the boy was unhappy and gave the mother a hard time at IKEA.

When it comes to choices, and if you had already allowed your children to choose, please be prepared to accept the worse. If you can't, then never try to let such thing happen. You make your own decision without asking your children will be better than turning them down after you had 'allowed' them to choose what they want.

This is a type of respect which many parents had neglected. Children are sensitive. For such act, you are making them confused. In future, when you get them to make choices again, will they choose what they want? Will this cause them to be less independent and less decisive when they grow up? We never know what harm had we done in their childhood which might affect their adulthood.

Let's learn how to communicate with our children together.