Should children have a say in family decisions?  

The answer is, “It depends.”

As a parent for nearly twenty-three years, a parent of a total of five children, my answers to many questions are often, “It depends.”

As several others have pointed out, children do need to learn to make decisions; giving them choices that have been parentally researched can certainly teach them that. This is better to do, in an  age-appropriate manner, than simply giving them free rein, such as, “Which restaurant would you like to go to?” or “What would you like to do today?”  One certainly would not ask a child or children to choose which home the family should purchase or how much money to
budget for a vacation.
 
From about age 2-3, a parent could ask a child which of perhaps two choices he would prefer, for example, hamburgers or pizza for dinner (providing the parent was prepared for either answer).  It really isn’t “fair” (a favorite childhood word) to ask for an opinion or decision and then overrule the answer.
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Children and Family Decisions    
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Simple, stress-free, and the end result is a clean house and plenty of leisure time for the weekend. The methods below ensure less work on a daily basis, but everything can be finished by the end of the week.  Make a plan, and stick to it!
 
First, clutter can be a huge problem for many families, so it needs to stop – if something is out of place, move it immediately to the room in which it belongs.  Keeping things neat, even a stack of papers, can give a room a better-kept look and makes a big difference in perspective.  Kids can also be more responsible this way by having to put their own things in place. 

Then, too, perhaps in there is simply too much “stuff”.  Periodically, one can be quite ruthless in selling or giving away useless items: outgrown clothing, non-working electronics, mismatched cookware or dishes, things that have been sitting on a “fix or repair” shelf for months or years, and even books or newspapers that no one has read and never will.
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Housework and Weekends
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