I am a fan of giving children choices.
We practise divisions of responsibility. As far as we see it, it’s our responsibility to provide warm clothes, good nutrition and development opportunities. It’s our DC responsibility to listen to his hunger and satiety cues.
We provide choices within limits.
For example, here are several outfits (which meet the day’s weather requirements), which one would you like to wear? Or ‘would you like curry, lasagne or fish and chips for your tea?’
Our DC is given choices about the activities we are going to do that day too. From the open ended ‘what would you like to do today?’ to the more closed ‘would you like to paint or bake?’. On the days we can afford to be more flexible, we take him into the garden and ask him which vegetables he’d like to help pick for lunch or tea.
All of the choices we give are formulated to meet his needs, whether that’s nutritional, developmental or just basic care.
We find it encourages communication, and respects our DC as a human.
For what it’s worth, this absolutely doesn’t cause me stress, and our DC is happy and is well-rounded.
I’m sure my MiL finds this very different from the days she parented, but she is wise to avoid negative comment.