Facilitating decision-making and autonomy in actors/dependents via offering choice and consequences- how including more independence in your learner’s life can increase confidence and general mood.
As a mother, one battle I am constantly facing is how I can offer my dependents more opportunities to be in control of their lives. Why is this so paramount? It’s vital because being micromanaged is physically taxing on the mind. It’s tiring and leads to feelings of unhappiness and a lack of ownership over decision-making, being micromanaged is exhausting and unenjoyable.
Offering more choices and opportunities for independence doesn’t need to be difficult. It can start with something simple like having two toothpaste options, choosing the book to read before bedtime or which clothes to wear each day. I like to call this style of parenting N U R T U R E. Why? The aim here is not to have a compliant obedient child, diminishing undesirable behaviours, the goal is to nurture efforts towards independence, risk-taking and trying new experiences.
This can also be applied to ourselves by being considerate over what we choose to spend time thinking about, how much time we invest into activities that don’t offer a huge benefit for the amount they cost and learning to say NO more frequently. If you’re in a situation where you are disempowered frequently, having compassion towards yourself because of this and being more consciously aware of when you need to find opportunities to implement more choice into your life is a great start that will restore some more sense of ownership over your life.
Have a nice weekend
R
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