Decision Fatigue

When I first became a parent, and up until recently, I prided myself in the fact that I was commited to helping my children develop a healthy sense of themselves by giving them a lot of choices. I presented them with choices at every turn: from what to eat, to what to wear, and even allowed them to contribute to negotiations about what to do on the weekend or after school. This has not been an easy path. I was raised with much more of a “benevolent dictatorship” model, where for the most part, my parents told me what to do and I did it. I was rather pleased with myself for the decision, though I noticed that my daughter often seemed indecisive, unable to choose, and that she would even sometimes protest at me for giving her too many options to choose from. She has also at times had meltdowns over not being able to make a decision or change her mind when something unexpected comes up, like when she outgrows a favorite pair of shoes or pants.

Then I read an article on the childmind.org website, by Gayatri Devi, MD, a neurologist and the director of the New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services. It was an excerpt about calm parenting, http://www.childmind.org/en/posts/articles/2012-7-10-secret-calm-parenting from her book “A Calm Brain”. In it, she shared the following experience:

“In a café recently, I observed a mother with her young son, who looked about five years old. They walked in for breakfast on a crowded Sunday morning and found a corner table set for four people.
"Where do you want to sit, honey?" asked the mother, pointing to the four chairs.
"I don't know, Mom. Wherever," replied the boy, his voice still heavy with sleep.
"You can sit up against the wall; you can sit in the corner. Or you can sit next to Mommy, right here," said his mother, ignoring his indifference. "If you sit next to the wall, you can watch people come and go. What do you want to do?"
"Mom, I don't care," said the son, starting to whine now.
"Okay, but don't cry about it after," warned the mother.
"Didn't you want to draw with your crayons?"
"Uh, okay. Here?" The son gestured toward the corner seat.
"Good," said his mother, looking pleased that he had made a decision. "Now, what would you like for breakfast?"
And so it went. By the time they left the cafe, this five year-old had had to make so many decisions I was exhausted. I sometimes thought my mother was too strict, but watching this sad Sunday morning drama, I was glad she set down a plate in front of me for breakfast every morning and that I ate what was on it.”

“Wow”, I thought to myself. “I’m that parent!” Feeling somewhat sheepish, I began to consider her argument. And the more I thought about it, the more it started to ring true. Making choices is exhausting. I feel that way so often that I even have a word for it: “decision-making fatigue”. And I suddenly realized that my well-intentioned approach of giving my children choices was sometimes leaving them feeling overwhelmed, and overly responsible, and possibly, not well supported and taken care of.

Then today I saw a clip of Amy Poehler discussing the same phenomenon on the Ellen Show. http://jezebel.com/5945071/amy-poehler-on-raising-boys-sometimes-you-nee... . She was joking that her kids only think there are two kinds of ice-cream, because she chooses for them. She seemed to understand, that on some level, children feel safe and taken care of when we make some non-vital decisions for them.

Now, I never thought I would advocate following someone else’s lead, rather than making decisions for yourself. But after a summer vacation filled with a loose schedule which required making decisions and choices every morning about how to spend the day (which was lovely for a while, BTW), the proposition of re-instating structure rather than choice started to seem rather appealing.

The Art Therapy Solution
One way to put this into a parenting context is to think about tradition. We all have family traditions: a certain way to do things that bring us a sense of comfort and safety, and harken back to our own memories of being a child and being cared for. And as our society becomes increasingly tolerant of different lifestyles, and we get to reinvent the way we conduct our daily existence, it may be worthwhile taking a moment to think about how we can reintroduce some structure, or tradition, into the way we parent. It seems that research shows that it makes us calmer parents, and also improves cooperation in our children by reducing their anxiety.

Tradition, ritual, and structure are antidotes to the choice and information fatigue that many of us are experiencing. It offers a form of holding which allows us to relax yet feel supported, like a comfortable armchair that is soft but firm, or a good pair of shoes, which gives us the sturdy footing we need to climb up and down life’s path.

To Do
Think of an activity that you can do with your children that incorporates some tradition, ritual or structure. It could be as simple as baking a batch of cookies, following grandma’s old recipe. Or it could mean doing a craft that requires following specific instructions, like origami, or quilting. Craftmaking is a wonderful way of keeping traditions alive, bringing togetherness and sharing into a family or community, and allows the mind to relax into an almost meditative state. The more we engage in these kinds of activities, the more our movements can become automatic, and soothing, and free of the stress of deciding or figuring out new information, or wondering what to do next. It may seem counter-intuitive, but this kind of structure can actually improve your creativity in the long run, because it will free up your mind from the worries and concerns of the day to day, and allow more random, new and frivolous thoughts to enter.

In conclusion
Do I advocate for making decisions for your child all the time? Of course not! But I am suggesting that you review the way in which you offer your child choices, and then the way in which you provide them with structure, tradition, and ritual. And ask yourself whether there are some areas where they would benefit from you making more executive decisions on their behalf, so that they can experience both their free-will, and their connection to a loving, and secure environment that is free of the stress of having to decide.