Family Matters

Questioning is an excellent way to gain understanding and knowledge of each other, of ourselves and the world around us. According to Oxford English, to question is “The action of inquiring or asking. The starting or investigating of a problem: inquiry into a matter. To inquire or seek after”. As parents, we can use questions in two ways to improve our relationships and further our understanding of our kids.

Here are 5 things parents do a lot, which invariably get them into trouble with their kids, and a good solution for each of them. Regardless of your parenting style, these tips are worth remembering and implementing at home.

Last week, after posting Self Esteem Mini-Course (part 6), I got this comment from Chuck Bluestein referring to his post called What Causes a Lack of Self-Esteem in Americans. According to Chuck, the lack of physical touch in infants is the source of the problem.

My mother-in-law once said to me that most people do not have a parenting philosophy. First they act and than they find reasons to support their actions. I was a young mother when she told me this and an educator and the philosophy of education was something I did every day and every hour and it was hard for me to understand what she meant.

… The elderly man stood next to us and gave each one of us a flyer for another party. Then, he stood in front of Eden and smiled at her. She smiled back politely. He put his hand in his pocket, took out a small ziplocked bag, gave it to Eden and went away. There were two toffee candies in the bag and a coffee shop business card. He did not give me anything or to other of the people sitting on the floor next to us.

I gave Eden a puzzled look.

“I don’t think I’m going to try this”, she said and put it in my bag. At that moment, I realised what had happened. It was a scary feeling. I sat next to my daughter, in a party in a public place and someone, right in front of my eyes, gave her drugs!

In one of my parenting workshops, I had a discussion with one of the fathers about the use of negative words and we talked about the slogan “Australia says ‘no’ to violence against children”. I explained that the brain records “Australia says to violence against children”, omits the “no” and focuses on “Australia”, “violence” and “children”. Paul thought it was a great slogan (and he did not work for the copywriting company who came up with the slogan).

At that stage, all the other participants already understood that “no smoking” only promoted smoking by focusing on the smoking, so pretty quickly, there was a lively group interaction going on.
This week, I got a video made by a great organisation, which presented the answer we were looking for in our discussion at that parenting workshop. What would you want people to focus on? We want them to focus on creating a child-friendly environment for our kids. We want them to be happy, to feel safe and to have good relationships with others.

The answer to (the pink elephant) “Australia says no to violence against children” is now “Australia says yes to a child-friendly environment for our children” and I love this new focus.

It was the third birthday our daughter had refused to celebrate with friends. For her 17th birthday, she invited a couple of girls to go out for a movie. For her 18th birthday, she spent the day crying because it was her grandmother’s funeral (and her dad was away to attend). When she approached her 19th birthday, we had the same discussions about a party all over again.

When I was kid, most of the kids wanted to have a party, at least on their birthdays. Only the “rich” kids could have parties every year. Some rare kids had parties more than once a year and those were obviously the most popular.

A couple of clients came to me for parent coaching because of a problem they had with their teen boy, and were very surprised when we went through Pink Elephants. They said, “We tell him every day NOT to hang around bad kids, but saying it only puts the focus on those kids we want him to stay away from”.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, the king and the queen had a welcoming party for their newborn daughter. All the fairies were invited to he party to bless the baby with all the goodness in life. In a glorious ceremony, each fairy approached the beautiful, gorgeous baby and blessed her. The Blue Fairy gave her happiness, the Green Fairy gave her health, the Red Fairy gave her love, the Pink Fairy gave her friendship, the White Fairy gave her confidence and the Yellow Fairy gave her…

This is the second part of yesterday’s Be a Good Sport!, which includes the last 5 things we need to do as parents to make sure our kids take the positive out of sports rather than the negative.