Choose your own adventure.

When I was a kid I used to read those Choose Your Own Adventure books.  You know, the ones that let you make a choice at the end of each section where you skip ahead to a certain page.  If you make the right choices you get to keep on going straight up to the end.  If you make the wrong choices the book might end a little sooner, your character permanently snuffed out.  Or at least snuffed out until you start over again and make different choices. 

Many childcare providers use "choices" with kids.  It is a great way to help them learn, simply saying something like "are you making a good choice here?".  I have tried to embrace this in my own home too.  Life is not always black or white.  All of us have a chance every day to make our choices, to choose our path of which the outcome may or may not be desirable.  But right or wrong, the choice was ours.

When it came to the books, when it was time to make a choice, I, well....I cheated. 

I almost always learned to flip to the page first.  Just real quick without pulling the page all the way back (you know because that means it doesn't count as a real page turn) so I could see if that was the right choice.  If it wasn't I picked again.  Easy peasy. 

Life unfortunately is not always so simple.  Kids have a harder time making good choices, sometimes it is easier to just scream and yell and push and hit than to choose to share something or choose to do something that has been asked of you.  But it is my hope that they are oh so slowly learning to make good, solid choices (along with learning that they have to deal with the consequences of a poor choice). 

As a grown up I usually make pretty good choices.  But sometimes even I "pick the wrong page".  Unlike the books I can't cheat my way to a happier resolution, but I can make the choice to admit when I am wrong.  I can choose to apologize.  I can choose to admit I am not perfect and I sometimes make mistakes. 

Good or bad, right or wrong, the choice is yours.   Have you made any choices today that make you wish you could go back and pick a different page?