Hi all,
Over the past 6 months dd4 has had issues making decisions. She seems desperate to make the right decision and because she often likes more than one option, she becomes completely paralysed. For example if I ask her to get her shoes, I'll discover her sitting on the floor with her two favorite pairs of shoes completely unable to decide which ones she wants to wear. During her dance class yesterday she held up the whole class 3 times because she couldn't decide whether or not she wanted glitter on her hand, which coloured ribbon to choose or where to sit. At the dentist they offered her the chance to choose a toy after her consultation and she so long considering the options, in the end they just gave her one - which she wasn't happy with.
It has been suggested to me that we try and limit the the choices available to her, however I don't know that this is the answer. Certainly in situations where there is a short time frame I now say 'because we don't have much time, I'm going to choose your shoes for you' (or whatever else is relevant), but when she knows we have plenty of time she wants to be able to be able to make choices about what she wears etc. Similarly there are so many times she's asked to make a choice by others - at kinder, dance class, swimming, friends and family. I certainly don't think we ask her to make inappropriate decisions - I talking about things like dressing, eating (to a certain extent), activities and play and little things like the above examples.
When we did try limiting even those choices for a short while, we ended up with other behavioral problems, I suspect because she felt like we were being unreasonable (and I think we were - so my heart wasn't in it either!). If I put a time limit on choices (which is my current method of dealing with this situation - otherwise she will literally spend half and hour trying to choose between shoes!), and she has not made a choice within that time (which she inevitably hasn't), I either make the choice or remove her from the situation (say choosing a magazine at a shop - we just don't get a magazine). She melts down and becomes absolutely enraged.
Often she will ask for help choosing and in the past we would go through the pros and cons of the choices, but it made no difference to her ability to make a decision and having us involved just seemed to prolong the process. So now we ask her what she thinks the pros and cons of the choices are, but that doesn't seem to help either - as there will inevitably be something that renders each equally appealing, but in different ways. We've explained about there not always being a best choice and that often the option to choose the alternative will come again in the future (for example, she can always where the other shoes tomorrow, choose the other coloured ribbon next week, etc)
The problem is that I am now starting to get frustrated with her, which now only makes the whole situation more fraught. I realise all this might seem off topic, but suspect this all ties in to her perfectionism (and her ability to see the benefits of the options available to her), which we've been able to combat on lots of levels, but seems to have found an outlet in this!
Has anyone experienced this? Any tips?
Thanks!
