The bear necessities in life... (Click to play!)
I came across a video recently that impacted me in a few ways but today I want to talk about just one. You can see the video on the left. It’s amazing how as small children, or small bears in this case, we fight with things all the time – for those who have adopted or foster children you will know the extreme lengths they go at times to avoid or control stressful and frightening situations for themselves. Those with birth children also will recognise the struggle that goes on within our kids to deal with the emotions that life brings.
Along the way as parents we feel helpless sometimes and overwhelmed other times with the responsibility of wanting to keep our kids ‘safe’ whether physically, emotionally, spiritually or mentally. It is a constant battle and one that can feel never ending.
One battle I’ve found recently is around trying to teach children to be their own person, to give them the resilience to stand up for themselves and also to develop their own minds. I heard a tape yesterday from a guy called Allan Pease who many of you may know – he was talking about how to recruit people into your business and whilst that may seem unrelated I’ve made the link today between his philosophy and my parenting with our kids.
The link is this – Allan talks about when you tell someone something you think will make them join you, for sure they will have objections – however if they say the same thing then it’s true! For example you may be enthusiastic about your business because it gives you a chance for a better retirement. However if the person you’re talking to is not bothered about retirement but wants more time now to be with their family, then all your enthusiastic selling will not work. However if you ask the right questions the person will tell you what they want and then you can talk to them from where they are.
How does this relate to kids you might ask? Well in my conversations with ours I’m very often telling them to do something (or stop doing something) and I’m wondering whether there’s a better way?! If we actually asked them more questions and tried to see where they are at what might be the result? So my challenge to you today is two things:
1) Try to ask questions to understand where they are. Questions could be – what’s important to you about what you’re doing right now? What’s your top priority right now? How would you like things to be different? (the answers may be surprising)
2) Step back and look at how you build resilience in your child. The end of the video shows what we do sometimes but what else could we do that would give our children confidence in their own abilities and resourcefulness?
I’d be really interested in feedback on how this goes with your kids – notice what changes in them, and you! What works, what doesn’t? Any other thoughts that come from this process.
