But it's great! They learn to pick-up when they're 'tricked' and they learn to chose. Man, I remember when I started deciding things for myself... at 16-17! 's

But it's great! They learn to pick-up when they're 'tricked' and they learn to chose. Man, I remember when I started deciding things for myself... at 16-17! 'so you want to go to prep school, university, or eng. school?' WTF I don't even know what I want for dinner... I feel this is something that needs to be trained the soonest possible. See what you feel when asked to chose. Decide something. See how you feel when you've taken option A or B (or feel when you don't like any of the available options! And learn to think outside the box!). See what happens when you change your mind before you started A. Or after you've started B and think 'I should have done A'. With your parents, friends, teachers. It's amazing how teaching this to my little kids with a positive and caring attitude has shown me how hard and important it all is! And it's even harder for collective decisions! Something amazing for twin children: they also have the opportunity (or the burden sometimes) to see how their choices affect others and how important negociating, defending, compromising is. Those books that GP cited are gold. The whole Positive Education movement is, I think, a way to a better future, with balanced and reasonable members of the citizenry. And I ache for all the children with have parents that don't even have the tiniest bit of empathy and interest for their children.