The six most important years to train a child.

Someone once said that childhood is a very short training period to make an adult. In actual fact I believe that is it shorter than most people realize. There are really only six short years to train a child. After that it is mostly really only occasional advise. If you take those six years seriously and pour your effort and energy into it you will reap the rewards of a mature and responsible adult later in life.

The six most important years to train a child are ages 6 to 12. I know that many people focus on the first six years and then send the children off to school for the rest of their training. But in my mind the first six years are important to a child but they aren't the years where children absorb the most information.

Let me explain. A child as a general rule does not exhibit cognative reasoning skills until around 6 years old. Prior to that it goes something like this. You tell your child something and they say, "Why?" So you explain it to them and then they say, "Why?" And so you explain it again and after they say "Why" the third of fourth time you just say "Because I said so." This is done in frustration but is an example of how a child cannot yet reason.

Sometime around their fifth or sixth birthday they change and when you give them a reason they accept it. Now they are at that stage where you can begin to talk to them and show them how to make decisions. Now when you have to make a decision you explain your reasons out loud so that they learn how to think. An example would be, "Well, I would like to go to the park with friends but Aunt Bertha is in the hospital and needs company. We don't always make decisions just because we want it but because it is the right thing to do. We will visit Aunt Bertha this time and go to the park another time." In doing this the child learns that self-sacrifice is sometimes necessary. When you verbalize how you make decisions they will learn how the process works. If you only make decisions because you want to for selfish reasons don't be surprised if your child grows up to make selfish decisions based on emotion. Parents need to always check their motives to be sure they are right.

If your child sees that you can't go fishing because you have to work they learn that obligations come before pleasure. If you decide not to go to the game because the roads are icy and you don't want to endanger any lives it helps children to see that many of the decisions you make are not selfish and self-serving. Unfortunately many children get the impression that adults can do "whatever they want" and can't wait to be an adult so they can do "whatever they want" too.

After a few years of making the opportunity to show your child how to make a decision then around ages 7 or 8 you start asking them. "What do you think?" Now you are letting them show you how their thinking skills are working. Do you think you should go to your friends birthday party or the doctor's appointment that was scheduled for your braces? Let them speak. It gives a child a great boost of confidence to know that an adult wants their opinion. Sure it is understandable that they want to go to the party but there are other obligations. You will still make the decision but now their self-esteem has been raised because an adult asked them their opinion. Do not criticize their opinion. You are looking to see how they think. Use opportunities to show them how it is done. One of my daughters told me how much she appreciated the fact that I respected her opinion even when she was young.

When your child reaches the age of 9 to 10 you can start letting them make some of their own decisions. In a controlled setting and in a way that you can accept whatever decision they make. When one of my daughters was 11 she came into the room and asked if she could wear this shirt to the library. It was a shirt like most girls wear but I have tried to raise my daughters with a sense of modesty and those spaghetti strap tanks are rather revealing.

I asked her if she thought it was modest and she replied, "But I like it." I told her the decision was hers. I would accept whatever she decided. She wanted to wear it and I told her that was fine. I made a mental note that at sometime in the future we needed to revisit modesty in clothes. An hour later as we stepped out of the car I noticed that she was wearing a different shirt. I asked her about it and she said she thought about it and decided to wear something more modest. I was proud of her.

It works best if you can train a child to make decisions before they become teenagers. If they learn early how to make decisions then you don't have to spend the teen years fighting them for authority. You can actually show them you trust them by letting them make their decisions because they have been trained to make decisions. I have three teenage daughters at home now and this is the most wonderful time of our lives. I love teenagers! They are responsible and delightful to talk to. They are my best friends.

Unfortunately for some parents the early years where their child kept asking "Why" caused them to stop explaining why and just made the decision. Then they enter the growing up years and keep making the decisions without explaining to their children how to make decisions. The child becomes used to mom or dad always deciding and in their heart look forward to the time when they can decide for themselves. Then as they enter the age of independence (around 13) they start defying their parents and exhibiting their independence and making decisions based on their emotions because they never learned how to make decisions.