Let’s Negotiate: Wheeling and Dealing with Your Children

Many things in life are not negotiable. Regardless of how compelling the argument, you cannot budge on certain things. With that said, offering choices and playing the home version of "Let's Make a Deal," is not a bad way to parent. Some may say this opens the door for disrespect and is too permissive, but there are ways to negotiate without losing your authority.

Why negotiate

Teaches an important skill. Negotiating and decision making are critical life-long skills. Learning to negotiate effectively helps your child see that they have the power and ability to impact their own life.
Reduces victim mentality. Rather than dictate everything your child does, set boundaries with a little flexibility so that they can make decisions. This greatly reduces power struggles.
Builds responsibility. The connection between their decision and the result of their actions is clearer when they have a say. Leaving some things up to negotiation also increases the likelihood of follow through.

Keys to determining if something is negotiable

Is it safe, legal and within the family boundaries? These are non-negotiable and do not have to be entertained.
Do you have time to negotiate? Not only does this include the actual negotiation and decision making time, but does there choice greatly inconvenience you or the rest of the family? For example, it may be acceptable on a different day, or it would have been fine if you were given more notice, but under the circumstances it won't work .

How to negotiate

Offer only acceptable choices. Be sure all the only choices on the table are doable. Avoid giving choices that are completely unrealistic or pit a good choice against a bad choice, hoping they choose one over the other. If it is not okay for your child to say no, then it wasn't really a choice.

My favorite example of a positive negotiation happened at his birthday. He loves seafood and was given the option of going out to eat, or spending the equivalent at the grocery store for a birthday feast of seafood. Both choices were attractive, I was not emotionally tied to either one, and it was his decision. He choose having more seafood at home and so we filled the cart with all his favorites. It was an all-you-can- eat bonanza for the same cost of going out. Plus, all of us ended up having to eat crab legs and shrimp for lunch and dinner the next couple of days!

Give a time limit. If you are negotiating something big for example, what sports team they want to join, then naturally you can give them more time to make a final decision than if you merely left the door open for negotiating the type of sandwich for their lunch box.

Communicate. Encouraging input from your children is a good way to create a positive home environment. My kids may not always want to help clean the house, but when I allow for negotiating, some fun solutions are discovered.

My youngest actually enjoys vacuuming and tidying up rooms, but only when she isn't watched. It seems like an odd negotiation, but apparently she likes to daydream while cleaning and likes privacy for her thoughts. I make sure she is not bothered and the rooms get done quickly. This is a certainly a win-win for me that I would not have had if I just assigned the task and enforced it without listening for input.

Although it may be easier to simply give orders when children are little, giving your children opportunities to practice good decision making in a safe environment prevents a lot of problems later in life.