We’re Blowing It…Big Time!

Do you remember those classroom discussions on decision making you had back in elementary school? Or the classes you took in middle school or high school? No! Well guess what. Chances are you didn’t have any instruction on decision making but the bedtime fables your parents read to you when you were three. In fact, most colleges and universities don’t have them either. Or if they do, the classes require a significant math background as a prerequisite. How could a topic so profound to the human experience and so critical to every individual’s success in life be so void from our educational system? We think this is WRONG!

We strongly believe that decision making should all be part of the regular curriculum in school. That said, most school systems’ curriculums are over-burdened now, their funding limited, and teaching decision making isn’t on their short list of next fall’s new curriculum. That is why it’s so important that we as parents personally get involved in teaching our children this critical, life-time skill.

As parents, we have many responsibilities to our children. On top of providing them love and a comfortable and safe environment to grow up in, we want them to learn how to survive on their own. We want them to learn how to be individuals. We want them to learn how to think for themselves. We want them to learn how to be productive members of society. And most of all, we want them to be happy, healthy, and successful. And for those of you with high aspirations for your children, good decision making skills is what differentiates leaders from successful leaders, innovators from successful innovators, and “want-to-be” entrepreneurs from successful entrepreneurs.

Children with superior decision-making skills will far surpass in life those without, everything being equal. Our very best gift you or I can give our children – if we want them to reach their full potential as adults – is to empower them in how to make high quality decisions, especially when the potential consequences are great. But what do we mean by empower?

What This Book is About

This book is about enabling you, as a parent, to empower your children to be superior decision-makers—for the rest of their lives. Empowering your children to be superior decision makers requires two components. First, you must ensure your children acquire the skills needed to make high quality decisions. Secondly, you must grant them, and they in turn accept, the authority to make decisions and the responsibility for the outcomes and consequences of their decisions.

About now you’re probably asking yourself, “How can I empower my child to become a superior decision maker if she won’t get those skills at school and I can’t teach her because I wasn’t properly trained myself?” We understand and appreciate your apprehension  but don’t throw in the towel just yet. This is exactly why we were compelled to write this book. Our book gives you all the basic tools you need to teach your children (and yourself) how to make high quality decisions. We will tell you not only what to do, e.g., identifying the right decision, but also how to do it, and why you are doing it. And along the way we will show you how you can judiciously transfer authority and responsibility for decision making to your child as your child matures in judgment and increases their decision making skills.

Since children learn best by doing, our approach centers on applying what we teach you – and then you to your children – in easily digestible steps. We have a little motto – FIVE-to-Decide™ – that we use that will help remind you and your child what needs to be done and when. We have created other simple memory aids that break our motto into simple, learnable steps that even a young child can easily remember.

How Young Can I Start?

Most children reach a level of cognitive and emotional maturity for understanding the distinctions we are making in this book around the ages of nine to twelve. Putting all of these ideas into practice takes a level of sophistication, attention span and reasoning skills not found in children of younger ages. Does this mean that we should begin our children’s education on good decision making when they become adolescents? Absolutely not!

While four to six year olds really don’t make any significant decisions (from a parent’s perspective), you can help build the concepts and language so that by the time they reach ages 9 to 12 they are ready to have some “decision equity”—not decision empowerment. Decision equity means having some control over the decision – including its associated choices – but not full control over the ultimate decision and its consequences. Decision empowerment happens when you have 100% decision equity – a major goal that you should be training your child to reach eventually.

In fact, we believe that training your children to be able to assume confidently 100% decision empowerment is one of the best gifts you can bestow on them.

Benefits to Our Approach



Once our children are grown and out of the house, their success or failure will be based on large part on three things: (1) the quality of the decisions you made for them; (2) the quality of the decisions our children made for themselves as they grew up, and most importantly, on; (3) the quality of the decisions our children then make in their careers and personal lives. We decided that a book grounded in the decision-making skills we teach professionals everyday – who also by the way often have trouble making quality decisions and drove us to write this book for our own children – are the most fitting for your children as well. In our conversations with corporate and government executives, the ability to make quality decisions is what separates those who get promoted and those who don’t.

We believe that decision-making is such an important skill that it would be a mistake to water the process down. However, we have provided an adult-appropriate approach to decision-making that you can tailor for your child.

Beyond your children, we hope that the approaches you will learn in this book will make you a better collaborator in decision making with individuals—spouse, parents, business colleagues, and friends—that are important to you and your life.