Resources to Get Kids Thinking About Choices

No matter our age or role in life, we all have daily choices to make. Understanding choice and practicing decision-making are exercises that can support us in discussing, reflecting on, and making good choices. This article shares resources for kids of all ages, including a round-up of children’s books about choices and teenage decision-making scenarios that help older kids explore choices.

Understanding Choice

Merriam-Webster defines choice as “the act or opportunity of choosing.” Choice implies power and freedom to decide. Decision-making skills are important. Discussing and practicing decision-making skills can support students in making good choices when faced with a decision-making situation. Scenarios which present real-life, relatable situations for older kids and teens can help

Decision-Making Scenarios

Scenarios can be an effective tool for learning on many topics, since they help kids and teens to expect and manage experiences before they occur in real life. Exposure to these hypothetical scenarios allows kids to better manage them when they happen in real life. The format allows kids to remove heightened emotions that they may experience in social settings so that they can think clearly on the issues presented and invite collaboration and discussion with peers and mentors. Use these nine teenage decision-making scenarios with teens and students to spark conversation, reflection, and, hopefully, better choices.

Overheard

You’re walking through the school hallway when you hear some friends saying mean things about a classmate. You feel uncomfortable hearing such unkind comments, even though the classmate didn’t hear them. What will you do?

Copycat

You study really hard for a big test. Your friend gets to school and tells you she didn’t study at all and wants to copy your answers. What do you do?

Playground Problem

You’re hanging out with friends after school when one of them suggests kicking some younger kids off the swings and using them yourselves. You don’t want to, but you know your friends will do it whether you join in or not. What do you do?

Vacation Conversation

Your best friend’s mom lost her job, and their family doesn’t have much money. Your family is going on a summer vacation, and you’re excited to talk about it, but you’re also worried that your friend will feel bad. What can you do?

Scary Message

You’re playing an online video game that your mom said you’re not allowed to play. Another player sends you a mean message that kind of scares you. What can you do?

Comic Keeper

A friend loans you a comic book to read. A few months later, it’s clear she forgot she loaned it to you. It’s a comic you really want but can’t buy in stores anymore. What will you do?

To Share or Not to Share

Someone at school forgot to bring her lunch and asks if you would mind sharing some of yours. You don’t really like her, but you have plenty of food. What will you do?

Sit or Stand

You’re riding a crowded city bus. A man asks you to move so he can sit with his son. You would have to stand. What will you do?

Movie Invitation

You promised your dad you’d help him clean the house this Saturday before your grandparents come over. But a friend just asked you to go to a movie you’ve been dying to see. What do you do?

Choice provokes thinking, and thinking is fun. For more prompts to get students thinking about choices, check out Choices In a Jar®. Each card presents a delightful dilemma—sometimes unusual, always challenging—to spark conversation or controversy. Change your choice and change your mind!

Choices Bookbag

Children’s books are exceptional teaching tools. Books can instruct, teach lessons, demonstrate life skills, and reflect powerful emotions that kids feel. We know that reading books aloud invites powerful discussion and builds relationships. Children’s books about choices are another way to build understanding about decision-making and choices for kids. Explore these children’s books about choices to add to your bookbag at home or school.

Respect Differences

At times, all children need a little help getting along with others and respecting differences—at school, in the neighborhood, at home, and on the playground. Teaching tolerance and encouraging acts of kindness through clear words and charming illustrations, We Can Get Along supports children’s development with simple yet essential skills for conflict resolution and peacemaking. The book includes activities and discussion questions that teachers, parents, and other adults can use to further explore the topic with young children. This book is available in English and English-Spanish bilingual editions.

Choices Matter Worldwide

In Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Character: Choices That Matter Around the World, thirty short inspirational stories are divided into six character traits (courage, creativity, kindness, persistence, resilience, and responsibility), and feature kids facing adversity from bullying in an American middle school to surviving persecution in the war-torn streets of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These inspiring stories span the globe with true accounts of ordinary kids showing extraordinary character. Readers will see how every choice they make is a chance to build character and show the world who they really are.

Choices Survival Guide

Many kids and teens have challenges when it comes to behavior. Discover practical strategies, and sound advice to help kids learn to make smarter choices, to make and keep friends, to get along with teachers, take responsibility for their actions, to work toward positive change, and to enjoy the results of their better behavior in The Survival Guide for Kids with Behavior Challenges: How to Make Good Choices and Stay Out of Trouble. This is a book for any young person who needs help with behavior, and a special section at the back addresses diagnosed behavior disorders.

Decision-making is both challenging and important. On a small and large scale, at a local and global level, choices matter. Help students make good choices through the teenage decision-making scenarios and children’s book suggestions in this article as you spark conversations, invite reflection, and improve decision-making skills with kids and teens.