A widget tale
Jul. 9th, 2008 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sierciaMost of you who know me in real life know that I have a terrible time making choices. An overly stocked menu can send me flailing into "everything looks so good" paralysis that is only snapped by the panic of the waitress being RIGHT THERE pen at the ready. Forget about important life choices - they reduce me to a gibbering mess of indecision.
Widget has started doing the same thing. I'm torn by how to react to it. On the one hand, it drives me up a TREE (there's nothing like one of your bad habits reflected in your kid), especially the little eye roll I get when she asks me to pick for her, butI somehow pick wrong, but then she also won't take the opposite of what I picked. On the other, I don't know how to handle it. It is some inate nature that she's inherited from me, therefore immune to anything I might do? Is it some kind of insecurity or fear of being "wrong" that I should be concerned about and try to find ways to bolster her confidence? Is she sensing that it drives me out of my gourd and doing it on PURPOSE?
Then tonight at Friendly's when she was trying to decide which kid's sundae to have, she raised the bar.
"I want something like the kid's hot fudge, but I want to choose my toppings."
"How about the Candy Shop Sundae (where you can choose your flavor and two toppings, and whipped cream and a cherry) and pick what you want?"
"But I had that LAST week." (I know, but we somehow got into the routine of going to Friendly's after the library on Daddy's snowboarding night)
"Well, you can have it with different stuff on it this week. Or, you could ask for kid's hot fudge, but with a different sauce (thinking maybe she was hung up on ordering the one)."
"But then it won't be a kid's hot fudge"
"Well, I know, but you said you wanted something different that that."
"Fine, I'll have Candy Shop *sigh*"
(Note, this is about when I marched her out of Friendy's altogether, sighing over having to CHOOSE which ice cream sundae she wanted.)
And then there was 5 minutes of angst over which toppings, whereupon she ordered the same exact thing she ordered last week.
*headdesk*
Widget has started doing the same thing. I'm torn by how to react to it. On the one hand, it drives me up a TREE (there's nothing like one of your bad habits reflected in your kid), especially the little eye roll I get when she asks me to pick for her, butI somehow pick wrong, but then she also won't take the opposite of what I picked. On the other, I don't know how to handle it. It is some inate nature that she's inherited from me, therefore immune to anything I might do? Is it some kind of insecurity or fear of being "wrong" that I should be concerned about and try to find ways to bolster her confidence? Is she sensing that it drives me out of my gourd and doing it on PURPOSE?
Then tonight at Friendly's when she was trying to decide which kid's sundae to have, she raised the bar.
"I want something like the kid's hot fudge, but I want to choose my toppings."
"How about the Candy Shop Sundae (where you can choose your flavor and two toppings, and whipped cream and a cherry) and pick what you want?"
"But I had that LAST week." (I know, but we somehow got into the routine of going to Friendly's after the library on Daddy's snowboarding night)
"Well, you can have it with different stuff on it this week. Or, you could ask for kid's hot fudge, but with a different sauce (thinking maybe she was hung up on ordering the one)."
"But then it won't be a kid's hot fudge"
"Well, I know, but you said you wanted something different that that."
"Fine, I'll have Candy Shop *sigh*"
(Note, this is about when I marched her out of Friendy's altogether, sighing over having to CHOOSE which ice cream sundae she wanted.)
And then there was 5 minutes of angst over which toppings, whereupon she ordered the same exact thing she ordered last week.
*headdesk*
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indecision
Date: 2008-07-10 12:47 pm (UTC)Maybe you could suggest three different options, and have her pick from them, or give her ideas on how she could decide - not so much "what about the Candy Shop?" but ideas on what you do when there are too many choices?
That last one might be a way to help her (and you) come up with ways of dealing with decision paralysis in general.
This is timely, because I was talking to my mom last night, and she was talking about how they're bidding on a house. Their current house is paid off, and the main reason they might buy a new one is that it's a ranch they can move into with my grandfather.
She sighed and said, "I hate change. I don't deal well with it." I chuckled and mentioned, "well, I think we inherited that."
"But you and your brother do so much better."
I forbore to remind her how rigid my brother is in his habits and routines, and instead took it for a kind of compliment. I know that I'm not always great at accepting change, but it's a work in progress, if that makes any sense.