# 153 09/30/02 Children need to be held responsible for bad decisions

Even though a parent spends great energy teaching a child good decision-making skills, the child may still fail to make good decisions. The problem in the training could be failure to make the child accept responsibility for his decisions. The very best training will fail if the parent rescues the child who makes a bad decision.

As an example, let me share something that I have often observed. Advanced classes are difficult, requiring commitment on the part of students. They must be willing to do assignments on time, study for tests and put in extra time for projects. When I was a high school counselor, I often had students ask to move to a less difficult class because they were not willing to work that hard. Most of the time, they were in the appropriate class, and in my opinion, did not need to change.

However, I always had students go through a decision-making process to look at the advantages and disadvantages of making the transfer. If they still felt that it was what they wanted to do, I involved the parents. I wanted everyone committed to the change. The change was made with the agreement that they could not move back to the advanced class for the rest of the semester.

Most of the time, students were back in my office in less than a week saying that they had made a mistake and wanted to return to the advanced class. I reminded them that they had committed for the entire semester.

Occasionally, a parent would come to see me insisting that the student be returned to the original placement. The parent who did that was teaching a profound lesson: It is not necessary to expend effort to make a good decision. You may always change your mind.

If you want your child to make good decisions, he must be held accountable for the decisions that he makes - even the bad ones. Sometimes, it is very difficult to watch your child suffer the consequences of a bad decision. However, unless it will do him permanent harm, he should be allowed to learn from his mistakes. That is how children grow into responsible adults.