Washington Learning Systems

Making Choices

At Home

Day 1. We make choices. We make many choices during the day; what to wear, what to eat, who to play with, what to play and how to act. Provide your child an opportunity to make a deliberate choice today.

Day 2. We think before we choose. It helps us to make good choices to think about our choices before we choose. We can think about who we get along with before we choose who we play with. We can think about the consequences of our behavior before we choose to behave or misbehave. We can think about if we are really hungry before we get something to eat. Play a game today with your child by having him tell you what might happen by making hypothetical silly choices.

Day 3. We choose activities. We can choose what to watch on T.V. or whether to watch T.V. at all. We can choose, with our friends, what games to play. Set aside 1/2 hour for your child to choose an activity to play with you.

Day 4. We choose who to do things with. Sometimes we get to choose who we want to play with. Sometimes we can call our friends or go to their house to see if they can play. Help your child to select a peer to play with today.

Day 5. We choose how to act. When things do not go our way, we can choose to make the best of it or to make it into a problem. Play with puppets, or dolls, with your child and act out different reactions.

Day 6. We choose how to show our feelings. When we are happy we might sing or laugh. When we are sad we may cry or want to be left alone. When we are angry we may scream or go to our room. Help your child to choose someone they love to send a letter, or picture to, to express their feelings.

Day 7. We can choose to learn or try new things. We can try new foods and activities before we decide if we like them or not. We can choose to make new friends. Offer your child an opportunity to learn a new skill and provide assistance.

Day 8. We choose goals and plans to meet those goals. We choose what we want to do or make during our free time, these are our goals. Our goal might be to have a good day. We choose plans to help us meet our goals. Help your child to select a goal and then make plans together to work towards reaching that goal.

Day 9. We can choose to change. When a plan does not work we can choose to change our plans. We can choose to change our mind, change our attitude or change how we feel about something. Set up an activity with your child that requires him to come up with an alternative plan to accomplish something.

Day 10. The older we get the more choices we have. New babies really have no choices at all! The more we learn the more choices we have. As we learn about more options we have more choices. For example, as we learn about and learn to like more food, we can choose to have that food. As we learn more games we can later choose those games. Help your child select an activity that she will get to choose in the future.

Day 11. Sometimes our choices are limited; sometimes we have no choice at all. If there are only two kinds of food in the house, those are the only choices for dinner. When it is time for bed we have no choice at all. Ask your child to tell you what would happen if there were no limits.

Day 12. We can choose to think about anything we want. Even though we can not do anything that we want we can use our imagination and pretend that we do the things that we want to. Play charades with your child, taking turns acting out fun things (e.g., flying).