Some parents support the philosphy of giving a private space for their children when it comes to decision making, especially if such decisions may leave a long term impact on their lives; however other group of parents does not prefer this approach, due to the fact that it may give the children the attitude of selfishness, and caring only about self-desires. While both views are contradictory to each other, applying a combination of both may be the best choice, whereby it is possible to leave a room for self-decision-making, while also being monitored and guided by parents.
The first argument considers the extreme importance of self-decision-making in building kids’ personalities. For example, the ability of kids to make their own choices gives them the spirit of being independent and being able to tackle problems on their own. Moreover, kids always tend to make wrong choices, in domains like eating habits and time management, but those early mistakes teach the youth a valuable set of skills at a very young age, and this concept is known as “learn by trying”. Furthermore, respecting children’s choices implement in their charachters necessary moralities such as tolerance and accepting different point of views, which definitely helps in making children more open-minded.
In contrast to the first argument, some parents think that such approach may lead to selfishness and individual-based-choices; however, these worries can be solved by teaching kids the importance of asking more experienced people and taking their opinion in consideration. Additionally, there is a fear of raising greedy kids that only care about their personal desires; nevertheless, this fear may be countered by teaching kids that our choices always affect other people connected to us, especially our families and friends, and the necessity of considering them while making our decisions. On top of that, parents, teachers, and caretakers believe that the great degree of freedom given to children may make them more arrogant and carelessfull, especially when being guided by the elderly. Nonetheless, this negativity may be avoided by installing the values of respecting older and more experienced people, and to achieve this kids must be taught by example, whereby parents shall always ask for help from others in front of their kids.
Although both groups show a considerable degree of care for their children, it is more convenient to combine both views into a single approach, in which kids are free to make decisions and learn from them, while being guided and supported by their parents and teachers. Moreover, parents must be tolerable to kids’ mistakes and not blame them for causing it. It is more reasonable to teach kids how substantial it is to learn from your own faults rather than regreting them.