210 | Why Saying "Good Choice" and "Bad Choice" Is Not Really A Choice

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get a master class in child-centered,

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play therapy and practical support and application for

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your work with children and their families.

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In today's episode, we are answering a question from Vicky in Canada.

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And her question is about

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when kids are told they made a good choice or a bad choice,

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perish the thought.

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So her question is about overhearing that

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and how that does not align with CCPT

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and really just kind of wanting to debrief on that.

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So

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I'll read parts of Vicky's email and then we'll dive in.

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Vicky says I'm an independent contractor in a private practice and

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I'm the only therapist using CCPT principles and skills exclusively.

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Welcome to the club, Vicky. So many of us in that situation.

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Therefore,

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I would love to become better equipped

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and eventually offer parenting coaching groups.

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I'm wondering what is your input on telling children that

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they made a bad choice or a good choice.

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This is something that I often hear at my children's daycare and quite honestly,

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it makes my skin crawl.

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Mine too.

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My opinion on it is when we judge the choices made by children, we do.

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So using our adult brain,

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as you say, children are impulsive and live in their hearts

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and labeling choices as good or bad doesn't

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sound very helpful to me nor child-centered.

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It is not.

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Thank you kindly for answering my email and I look forward to hearing from you.

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So Vicky from Canada, thank you for the email

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and

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thanks for being a part of the podcast family

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as a general rule. Anyone outside of

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CCPT

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but anyone working with kids.

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So we, we have to narrow down the population about whom we're speaking, right?

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Anyone that's working with children

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but not

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any CCPT knowledge or background,

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you're going to hear good choice and bad choice come out of their mouths

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almost universally.

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I'm not surprised at all that you're hearing it at your child's daycare.

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You hear it in schools, you hear it in classrooms, you hear it in after school care,

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you hear it in daycare, you hear it in coaching, you hear it in children's sports.

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Good choice and bad choice has become the predominant way that most

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adults approach children about the choices and decisions that they're making.

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Crazy thing is I actually did several parenting

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podcast episodes on this a while back because

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I talked to so many schools principals, teachers,

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staff, faculty, whomever.

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And when I bring up choice giving

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almost across the board.

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Their responses are,

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oh yes, we give choices all the time. Yeah, we're, we're constantly giving choices.

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We say, is that really a good choice? Are you making a good choice right now?

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I don't think that's a good choice. That seems like a bad choice to me.

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And I'm like, oh my gosh,

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I think the, the parenting podcast episode that I'm referencing says why saying

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making a good choice or a bad choice isn't choice giving or something like that.

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So I've actually very clearly addressed this with parents,

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but I think this is helpful to address it from the therapist side of things as well.

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Here's what we need to be mindful of.

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If we use a value

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in word,

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it transforms the entire dynamic of the conversation.

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It doesn't matter whether it's praise specifically. For example,

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we know that if there's a valuating word, it's our evaluation of it.

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It's our opinion. It's our thought. It's what we think about it.

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That was the Session Savvy

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series episode. Gosh, that is so hard to say.

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The Session Savvy series episode this week was on valuing

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words, it changes everything about the conversation.

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So if we say good choice and bad choice to a child,

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it no longer is about the choice. It's about what we think about the choice.

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Do you see how that shifts it?

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We lose all impact and efficacy about a child having a choice.

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If we evaluate

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what the choice is.

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So when we use valuate in words,

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it derails the whole process.

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Now, I would argue in a school setting,

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most of the time kids are not actually being given choices anyway,

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they hear the word choice

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and they might hear the word choose,

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but it's not truly a CCPT choice in the way that we understand it, right?

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The reason why we give choices is for empowerment.

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The reason behind choice giving is for ownership and responsibility

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and understanding of outcome

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and that they have a measure of control over something in their lives.

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The only way this works is if it's neutral

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and it's factual,

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so you can choose this or you can choose this, which do you choose?

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That is calm, it's neutral, it's factual. That is truly a choice

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once a child has already done something or said something or behaved in a certain way

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coming back and saying that was a bad choice.

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First of all, no choice was given.

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That's just a follow up to something that's already taken place

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and then evaluating what happened.

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That's punitive and it's berating. And it's critical

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notice that with choice giving,

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if the child chooses a negative outcome,

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we again neutrally factually and calmly say

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you've chosen

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whatever the negative outcome is

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because we don't have ownership over that outcome. The child does.

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just similarly, if someone were to say that was a good choice,

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what does the child learn?

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I just made you happy.

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So now I'm gonna become a people pleaser.

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Now, my entire sense of validation and worth

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is going to be in what other people think about what I've done.

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You wanna understand why we have the snowflake generation?

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You wanna understand why kids right now are so fragile

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because everyone gets a trophy and everyone gets praised.

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There's value laden words in everything

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that a child is exposed to.

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Therefore,

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they have no sense of who they are. They have in no internal locus of control,

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they have no internal motivation.

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There's no intrinsic ownership over anything.

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It's I'm gonna do this because I want someone to tell me that I made a good choice.

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I'm gonna do this because I want someone to say good job.

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I'm gonna do this because I'm gonna get something for it.

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That's so unhealthy y'all

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and encouragement is the antidote to this, right?

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So related

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when we give choices,

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we're empowering a child, but we're also helping them understand

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they have responsibility for the outcome.

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It's not what we think about it. It's just a fact

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if you choose to throw something

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and it hits someone,

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there is a negative consequence.

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If you choose to control your behavior and

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say that you're angry instead of throwing something,

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there is a different outcome to that choice.

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It's nothing to do with our evaluation. Look, would we always hope and want a child

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to

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behave in

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the most appropriate ways? And never have to face negative consequences.

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Of course,

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I would always choose for any child in the playroom

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to not have to move to ultimate limits.

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I would always choose for any child in the playroom

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to not have to deal with negative ramifications of behaviors.

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I would always choose that for my son

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when my son does something who just turned 15.

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So, I mean, we're not talking about a little kid anymore. He's way taller than me.

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When we're talking about my son though,

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I many, many times have thought

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and I so wish that you would have chosen differently there.

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I so wish that you would have been obedient so that you

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didn't have to deal with the negative outcome that you chose.

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But you know what? It's not my burden,

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it's not my responsibility,

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it's his, he chose that outcome even as much as I wish that he wouldn't have.

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So if we say to a kid that was a bad choice

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that does nothing

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but

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make the child feel guilty for something probably

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they already feel guilty about number one.

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But number two, it makes it all about us

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and that is so detrimental and really it undermines the entire concept

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of a child learning what responsibility and ownership over outcomes means

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that is a learned process.

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And so therefore, if we use valuative words, it's a totally different approach

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and really ineffective to the outcomes that we really want for children.

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So Vicki in Canada. Thank you so much for the question.

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Make sure that as you meet with parents and as you're doing IPCs

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that you are communicating this type of things to them,

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these are really, really helpful principles and ideas

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because they don't know,

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we, none of us know what we don't know.

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But

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if they are exposed to it, it usually provides some aha moments.

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So please make sure that you're advocating on behalf of kids

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psycho educating parents

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helping them understand what we know.

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Which is there are intentional words that we use

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that have huge results.

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So help parents understand not to use valuating

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words in their conversation with their children.

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It changes things in a big way.

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All right, y'all, if you wanna reach out to me, I'd love to hear from you,

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brenna@thekidcounselor.com.

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If you wanna leave a question, you can call the voicemail number

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which is 813-812-5525

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and the meet up in Atlanta is very, very soon.

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So if you have RSVPd, be on the lookout for an email,

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we're going to be sending out all of the details

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for you so that we can all get together.

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It's gonna be a big group, y'all. I'm super excited

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and we're working out all of the final details.

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You will be receiving an email very soon.

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Love you all, can't wait to see you in person at some point.

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There's gonna be lots coming in 2025 in the way of meet ups and things like that.

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So, stay tuned. Love you all. We'll talk again soon. Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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Brenna Hicks. For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.