When you go out with him to take a walk, if it is so nearly immaterial which way you go that you are willing that he should determine the question, then lay the case before him, giving him the advantages and disadvantages of the different ways, and let him decide; and then act according to his decision.

But if you have determined in your own mind which way to go, simply announce your determination; and if you give reasons at all, do not give them in such a way as to convey the idea to his mind that his obligation to submit is to rest partly on his seeing the force of them.

For every parent will find that this principle is a sound one and one of fundamental importance in the successful management of children--namely, that it is much easier for a child to do what he does not like to do as an act of simple submission to superior authority, than for him to bring himself to an accordance with the decision by hearing and considering the reasons.

In other words, it is much easier for him to obey your decision than to bring himself to the same decision against his own will.
_In serious Cases no Reliance to be placed on the Reason of the Child_.
In all those cases, therefore, in which the parent can not safely allow the children really to decide, such as the question of going to school, going to church, taking medicine, remaining indoors on account of indisposition or of the weather, making visits, choice of playmates and companions, and a great many others which it would not be safe actually to allow them to decide, it is true kindness to them to spare their minds the painful perplexity of a conflict.

Decide for them.