Choose Your Battles

I think when you have children, you need to choose your battles. Whether it be picking out their own clothes or shoes, within reason (no hoochie clothes or stilettos). I don't know if all of you will agree with me. I think if you try to tell them everything to do, they can't think for themselves. Or if you keep them under your thumb, when they go out into the world and experience a little bit of freedom, they will go wild. If you constantly tell them "no", it can be worse than if you give them a little bit of freedom now. I am not talking about going to the extreme and letting them go where ever they want and do whatever they want, like to unsupervised parties or car dating at the age of 14 or 15. Here is an example of what I mean. Brittney has been wanting to get her hair dyed or highlighted. Not just any color, but blue. We have been talking about it for about 3 months now. I took her on Saturday to get it done. I was a little apprehensive at first. We were going to go with a temporary color, but Tara told us with her hair color it would look green. So we decided to go with a permanent color. I have to admit, it does look good on her. It is more of a blue/black. Everyone likes it. My husband even likes it and he is sort of old-fashioned. Of all people, I thought he would be the one that would have something negative to say. She is worried that her best friend's parents won't like it. I hope they don't think bad of me for letting her get it done! After the dance recital in June, I am going to let her go back and add some color to her bangs. I just wanted to do it a little at a time so it wouldn't be a big shock all at once. This is the before,
and after. What do you think?

(I love before and after pics, lol!)