Making Informed Decisions
As parents we are faced with making decisions about our children on a daily basis, some simple and some more complex than others. Some of these decisions could impact our children on a short term basis or impact them for the rest of their lives.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have heard media reports and no doubt discussions in the community regarding falling vaccination rates in children and a campaign the government is looking at implementing to combat these growing numbers. Some 39,000 children* are not immunised for various reasons. Parents have a wide variety of resources available to them to make a decision as to whether they vaccinate or not. I have an opinion on this but this is not what the objective of the article is about. It is about the way in which we make these types of decisions and ultimately what is best for our children.
I remember the debate regarding circumcision and what to do as a new mum. When I was pregnant with my first, I asked my GP and Obstetrician for some reading material regarding the pros and cons because my husband and I wanted to make an informed decision and not just base it on ‘family history.’ We made that decision even though we ended up having a girl! Our second child was a boy and we still had another discussion and were comfortable with the decision we made, a very personal one. We recently made the decision to have my daughter’s tonsils removed, again, an informed decision after countless discussions with the professionals. There were also our personal experiences we had gone through with her being so sick with tonsillitis and the amount of medication she was on which would ultimately impact her later on in life. Complete strangers have given me their opinion as to why I have made the wrong decision having them removed and then there are those who have said it is the best thing we could have done! As she rests on the couch and takes an hour to eat her toast, I keep reminding her of the big picture and now they have gone, she will be a lot better. I’m sure that does nothing to appease her but maybe that is more for me as a mum justifying my decision as those opinions from complete strangers swirl around in my head!