Family Matters

As a parent, I am sure you are familiar with the “Mommy and Daddy are going out” storm. You put the kids to bed, kiss them good night, wait until everything is quiet, you sneak the babysitter in and just as you are about to leave, you hear a tiny, not-at-all-sleepy voice calling out, “Where are you going?”

One day, I got a phone call from a mother, who was interested in our kids coaching. I talked to her for a while to get a good understanding of her situation. During this conversation, we talked about things that were application to many parent-child situations, which I have since repeated with many parents, so here it is for everyone’s benefit.

Over the years, many people have said to me, “Just wait until you have teens, then you will really have a hard time”. I usually smile and say, “Thank you for the compliment”, because they think I look young, but I already have 2 teenagers - 19 and (nearly) 13 years old - and there was nothing horrible to wait for. Their teen years are just as pleasant and fulfilling for me as a parent as their early childhood, if not more.

When we talk to other people, we make assumptions or presuppositions. Unfortunately, those assumptions are based on our very own experiences in life and may be completely inappropriate for someone else.

Questions go straight to the subconscious, so even if your kids do not answer immediately, the questions stimulate their thinking. Get yourself familiar with all the types of questions to help you use positive, challenging and encouraging questions.

Sarcasm is the weapon of disempowered people, who use information to regain some of their missing feeling of control. To find out when you are using sarcasm in your life and overcome it, here are some things you can do…

Last week, I introduced parenting the Socrates way, where I outlined the benefits of parenting with questions.

Today, I will continue with this parenting technique and explore the “right and wrong” questions and subsequently the “right and wrong” answers.

Assertive people have sets of beliefs that help them to be assertive. If you want to find out what you need to do to become an assertive person, examine your beliefs. Here is a set of questions to help you examine your beliefs…

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.

Communication is an important part of everyone’s life and conflicts are inevitable. No two people react the same way to all situations. If you choose the aggressive approach, either physical or verbal, you risk the relationship, but if you choose the passive approach, you risk the relationship too.

An assertive approach from both parties can contribute a lot to the communication and the relationship between the two parties.

Here are 32 techniques that will get you to act assertively in now time…