When can a child start making decisions?
We're sleeping in our self-built hut in the forest tonight!" The ten-year-old daughter and her holiday friend are already packing their sleeping bag, sleeping mat and crisps. The parents, on the other hand, are still struggling with their decision. What if there's another thunderstorm that night? Are all the Croatian snakes in the area really non-poisonous? Who else could be out and about? But above all: what a great and brave idea, you have to support it! Don't you?
Making good decisions is a difficult task even for adults. Children into young adulthood are often unable to do this on their own. «The cognitive skills required for this are very complex and diverse and only pick up speed late in development,» says Claudia Roebers, Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology at the University of Bern.
For parents, this means that they have to make decisions for their children for many years - and often against their will. Sometimes they will turn out to be wrong. At the same time, however, it is also important to empower and support children to be able to make good decisions themselves at some point. How do you manage this balancing act?
Prospective memory
Claudia Roebers recommends first focussing on the scope of the decisions. «One of the reasons why children up to the age of ten to twelve cannot make decisions that extend into the future on their own is that their prospective memory is not yet sufficiently developed.» This means that they lack the ability to consider and weigh up the impact a decision could have in one or ten years' time because they live primarily in the here and now.
So if you ask them which secondary school they want to go to, the logical answer for them is: «I want to go to school because Andrina goes there too!» At this age, children can't yet realise that Andrina might no longer be a friend in two years' time. It's a similar situation when children are allowed to decide for themselves how long they spend on their mobile phones every day. They can't understand the effects on their brain or psyche, they only see the direct benefit that this time brings them.
Explaining decisions transparently
The parents' perspective is therefore important when making decisions about the future. «Up until the teenage years, parents should make it clear that although they take the child's opinion into account, they still have the authority and sovereignty over such decisions,» says Claudia Roebers. However, this also includes explaining to the child in an age-appropriate and transparent way why parents should make this decision and not another and what decision-making aids they use.
Adults will also realise that the more long-term the consequences are, the more difficult it is for them to make decisions - this is also something you can talk about openly with children. «Whether a child likes it at a new school depends very much on which classmates and teachers they get and how their interests and abilities develop. Even parents can't foresee all of this,» says Daniela Galashan, neuroscientist and parenting coach from Stuttgart.
Build up a wealth of experience
To be able to make a decision, you need to have a picture in your head of what to expect. «If you put a red and a green T-shirt in front of a kindergarten child, they can easily choose between the two because they can see what it's about,» says Maya Risch, a family counsellor from Zurich. If, on the other hand, you ask them whether they would like to visit a museum, the decision is very abstract and overtaxes their cognitive abilities if they have never been there before. Adults also realise that the more new things they are confronted with, the more difficult it is for them to make decisions. However, they benefit from their greater wealth of experience.
Children don't make better decisions later on just because they were allowed to have as much say as possible at an early age.
Daniela Galashan, neuroscientist
«We then generalise from previously learned contexts from the environment,» says psychology professor and psychotherapist Andrea Reiter, who researches decision-making processes at the University of Würzburg. Similar decisions and behaviours that have led to good results in the past are repeated.
Someone who has enjoyed learning the piano is more likely to decide to learn another instrument than someone who has struggled with it. A child who has never had music lessons, on the other hand, has no idea what to expect and how to cope with regular practice.
Decisions without negative consequences
The most important task of parents is to support their children in building up their own wealth of experience in making decisions. But slowly and according to their age. «Children don't make better decisions later on just because they were allowed to have as much say as possible at home at an early age,» says Daniela Galashan. «Every decision costs us resources and takes energy.» Which is why it is enough to ask a kindergarten child in the morning whether they want to wear a red or green T-shirt.
On another day, they can then decide whether to put an apple or a banana in the snack box. The fewer choices a child has, the easier the decision is. Because a lot of choice always means that you have to exclude a lot of things. Which in turn leaves the feeling of missing out on something. Parents can also initially limit their children's choices to those that have no negative consequences.
Transferring responsibility
According to Maya Risch, from primary school age onwards, it is also important to take personal responsibility for a decision - and therefore possibly also to bear the negative consequences. «Parents understandably want to protect their children from unpleasant experiences for as long as possible, but it's important to let them make them themselves,» says Maya Risch.
Adults only know how uncomfortable cold hands feel when cycling because they have held a handlebar without gloves - and therefore decide to put them on later. The fact that you feel sick with five glasses in your stomach is something you must have felt at some point. «Thinking for yourself about what you spend your pocket money on and then realising that it's gone and how long you have to save again are also good exercises in decision-making,» says Maya Risch.
«What would you do differently?»
However, parents can use such situations to transparently show their children which factors they themselves take into account when choosing a holiday destination, for example - and that it's not just about the most beautiful beach, but also about how much the trip costs and that the money also has to be enough for car repairs. «This allows children to see the dimensions that a decision can involve,» says Maya Risch.
Claudia Roebers finds it almost more important than leaving the child to make decisions step by step, to reflect on the results together afterwards. «If you could turn back time, would you do it the same way again?», «What went well?», «Where were there difficulties?», «What would you do differently?» are possible questions that parents can ask their children in this context. «Such conversations really help a lot so that you can make good decisions in future and also learn to stand by your decisions,» says Claudia Roebers.
Puberty is a good time to take away children's fear of making the wrong decisions.
Maya Risch, family counsellor
A stay abroad? That holiday job? Which career? From the teenage years onwards, decisions become increasingly complex. In order to be able to make them, irrelevant information has to be sorted out and the relevant arguments in favour and against from various sources of information have to be integrated, weighed up against each other and the right conclusions drawn, explains Andrea Reiter.
«Developmental psychology has shown that these basic cognitive skills continue to improve from childhood to adolescence, which also leads to better decision-making skills,» says Reiter. Parents can offer themselves as dialogue partners at this age. Even adults usually make far-reaching decisions, such as a career change, after talking to others.
No decision is forever
«It's also a good time to take away the children's fear of making the wrong decisions,» says Maya Risch. Sometimes there is no ideal decision, sometimes another option only arises later or things turn out differently than expected.
«Very few decisions are irrevocable,» says Daniela Galashan. Parents can therefore also reassure their child that they can take a different path if necessary - and that they will support the child in the best possible way either way.
Incidentally, the daughter survived the night in the Croatian wilderness completely unscathed and quite proudly. Her parents still envy her for her courage today - and for an experience that she now has ahead of her parents.
