The Most Important Empowering Question For Parents

Every single parent knows that children are copy-cats. In reality, they duplicate so much, and so skillfully, that they are virtually “copying machines”. They duplicate what you say, the way you voice it, and when you say it. They imitate the style in which you move about, how you behave, how you react to events, how you deal with other people, and just about anything else you do.

But we also understand that every now and then, we desire to teach them something, and they learn something different. As an example, you’re intending to teach your children about gardening and how fun it is to cultivate vegetables, but they learn how to run away when they catch a glimpse of a maggot or a spider, creating a new permanent terror (or plain “severe loathing”).

The problem is obviously that children learn at a unique pace. They simply don’t predictably learn what you desire them to learn. And it’s worse because from time to time you don’t know (or don’t even reflect on) what you would like your child to learn.

But choosing what you want your child to learn is not critical when you’re sitting with your child attempting to teach them something. Well, it is important, but it’s evidently at the forefront of your mind. The vital times are when you are not attempting to openly teach your child something, but they are going to find out something nonetheless. It’s at these times that you really need to be responsive to what your child is learning.

For instance, if you and your companion are in conflict about something, and either of you swears and stamps off rather than coping with the arguement sensibly and equitably, what will your child learn? Well, the chief thing they’ll learn is a new word, one that you don’t need them saying in public! The second thing they’re prone to learn is: “when in a disagreement, stamp off rather than dealing with it.” Or something similar to that, at any rate.

So being aware that your daughter is going to learn a little something in EVERY SINGLE circumstance they are in is critical. Deciding beforehand what you’d like them to find out is something altogether different. And that’s the reason why the number one empowering question for parents is: what do I want my child to learn from this?

If you can maintain a question like this in your mind as often as possible, and particularly where you are strongly demonstrative or reacting from custom, you’ll begin to have an extraordinary faculty to have an effect on your child even more than you do already. You’ll be able to show them more of how you want them to conduct themselves, in a style that’s more like you at your best, instead of you at your worst. You’ll be able to congruently say “do what I do AND what I say”, without distressing so much about your language and actions being in alignment. You’ll be able to tell your child as they age why you do the things you do, realising that they’ll by now have had years of being around you as you act in accordance with your morals and rules.

But… you will only be successful in doing this if you have a key frame of mind that parents need to possess, something that makes this empowering question valuable. Independently, the question is helpful, but it’s not the only thing you need to have.

Read part 2 of this article to find out what that mindset is…