Just finished giving a workshop on communication and ironically, I left feeling like I was not able to communicate which is why I feel compelled to attempt to express myself in writing.

My main point was that we can set up an environment where our kids want our advice.  However, in order to do that, we have to do the opposite of what we are inclined to do.  Instead of “preaching to them” …I mean….giving them the wonderful advice we have because we “know” (After all, we’ve been there and we don’t want them to learn the hard way, we want to help them avoid mistakes we see a mile away.)  What we need to do is try to understand why they want to do something, why they want what they say they want, or why they like something.    Some of you know, I’ve been in pharmaceutical sales for the past 14 years and in the business world, we call it “consultative selling”.  We focus on what the customer needs, not on what we are selling.  We try to understand their needs.  Can you imagine if I spent 5 minutes going on and on about how good my product is only to be interrupted by the doctor who says “that’s very interesting, but I don’t treat patients with HIV”.   Useless, right?  That’s how useless it is to give our kids advice before we try to understand them or maybe I should say before they feel understood.

When we feel understood, we are open to hearing others’ suggestions/their advice.  When we do not feel understood, we slam the door shut.

Isn’t this the main complaint a lot of women have about their husbands.  Wives say they can’t talk to their husbands about anything without them telling them what to do…that they just want to vent…that their husbands go into “fix-it” mode and start giving them solutions.  They are trying to help, just like we are trying to help when we do that to our children, but we don’t want to be told what to do.  It feels controlling.  Nobody wants to be told what to do, including our kids.  Our job is to help our kids learn to trust themselves…learn to trust the decisions they make.

We women are naturals at listening, right?! Maybe, maybe not.  Either way, we all need to resist giving them the solution.  Make them think!  Deep inside we all know what to do; help them find the answer.  We have the key that opens the door to our children's heart which will in turn make them want our advice..as long as they feel understood.  

Listening to them, truly trying to understand why they want those shorts that show their butt cheeks dos not mean you have to buy them!  We all want to be understood so bad (yes, them and you both) that we don't even "care" if we get what we were asking for.  We're OK with it, as long as we feel they understood us.  It's all part of respecting your children.  What do they say...if we want respect, we need to give respect.  

Some of the questions/statements I’ve used with my sons effectively are:

·         “what do you think?”

·         “why do you like that?” “what do you like about that?”

·         “Help me understand…I just don’t see it”

·         “if you were a father, would you let your 10 year old do that?" (yes…my sons loved me for this one! NOT)

·         “If you had a daughter and someone did that to your daughter, would that be ok with you?  If not…why is it ok that they do that to you?”