Teach Them Decision Making Skills

When your child or your family is making an important decision, this is an excellent opportunity to teach effective decision making. Learning these skills is essential to making any decisions, including those of career choice.

Thanks to the research of behavioral scientists, particularly Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann, we know how effective decisions are made. The key is to focus on the procedures, or steps that are followed. They identify seven, and I have condensed these to four that have the acronym ACIP:

A is for Alternatives (you want to consider a wide range of them),

C is for Consequences of choosing the different alternatives,

I stands for the Information you gather, and

P is for the plans you make for implementing your decision.

These procedures are discussed in another section of this website called High-Quality Decisions. Use them yourself and teach them to your children.