Teaching Kids To Make Wise Choices

We have all heard the following statement.

‘Your life is a product of the choices you make.’

If this is a true statement, then possibly the most important thing we can teach children is how to make wise choices.

It is my observation that as Christian parents we spend too much time teaching children to obey us and not enough time teaching them to make wise choices.

Please don’t misunderstand me.

It is good for children to obey their parents, but it is better for children to hear from God for themselves.

If we make all the decisions for our children, they won’t know how to make decisions for themselves.

You might ask,

“What type of things should I let my child make decisions on?”

Start with things that really don’t matter – in other words things that are not issues of sin.

As your child get older, you need to allow him or her to say no to you at times. 

For example: you might want to go to Applebee’s for dinner, but your child doesn’t like Applebee’s. It’s okay to let him make some of the decisions as long as it is not sin or manipulation.

Another important aspect of teaching our children to make right choices is allowing them to experience the consequences – good and bad – of their choices. 

Too many times well-meaning parents will “rescue” their children from experiencing the negative consequences of wrong choices.

When we do this, we actually teach our children that it is okay to make a wrong choice because we will rescue them.

Ultimately this sets our kids up to fail in life.

Eli did this with Hophni and Phinehas.

Eli should have fired his adult children because they caused God’s people to transgress, but instead he continued to keep them employed as priests at the temple.

The end result was that Eli and his children are most likely are in hell.

The Bible says, ‘their sins will never be forgiven.’ (Samuel 3:14)

The third thing we need to do is to teach our children to follow their conscience.

Every child has a conscience and they know right from wrong and yet we continue to train our children to always check with mom and dad to find out what is right or wrong.

We should be training them to listen to that red and green light on the inside of them

When a child says, “My mom won’t let me watch that movie.”

That tells me that he is still depending on mom to make his decisions.

A child is beginning to grow up spiritually when he can say, “I don’t want to watch that movie because it’s not good for me.”

Last but not least, we need to teach our children to think right thoughts, because your choices are a product of what you have been thinking about. 

I think this is one of the most important areas that children today have a choice in.

In other words, you can make your kids obey you by threatening to discipline them, but you cannot control what they are thinking.

Even God can’t control their thought life.

We need to teach our children about the importance of choosing to think right thoughts.

I believe that as we do these things, we will be empowering our children to make wise choices and the end result will be God’s blessing will be upon their live.