Choice in children is a tender and often misunderstood subject. Children are not miniature adults, and their capacity to carry responsibility is still forming. In moving away from authority, we may be slipping into the other extreme, leaving children alone with decisions they are not yet ready to hold. Perhaps the question is not how soon children can choose for themselves, but how consciously adults are willing to choose for them, until they are truly ready.

A lot of children grow up believing that they must become something  when they grow up. A doctor. A pilot. A filmmaker. An athlete. A chef. And almost always, the “something” they must become is a profession . We encourage children to dream, yes, but so often the dream we hand to them is a narrow, pre-defined one. Become successful in this. Become great in that.  As though what children should become when they grow up  is a fixed, predetermined answer. This morning, at 5:30 a