May 7, 2018 | Nurture
By guest blogger Tara Miller
Often in life, we are faced with choices between two—or more—good options, but we don’t have the time, energy or money to do all of them. We have to choose. It’s especially difficult to choose when both options seem quite good.
When the person making the choice is a child or teenager, it can be particularly tempting to simply tell them what you think they should choose. After all, you have experience and insight that they don’t. However, if you want them to truly commit to their own decision, they’ll need to take ownership of it themselves.
The “forced choice” approach
Here’s a coaching-based exercise you can use called the “forced choice” approach. In this case, I used it with my 18-year-old daughter who was choosing a college this spring, but it could be applied to any situation where there’s a choice to be made between options.
Knock-out factors
My daughter had first narrowed down her choices using some “knock-out factors.” These are criteria that would make her decide against a school outright. For a serious student athlete, a knock-out factor might be a school not having a good basketball team. My daughter had two knock-out factors: she wanted a school that was out-of-state and she wanted one where the campus felt like a positive fit on an intuitive level. One school looked perfect for her on paper, but when she went to visit it failed the knock-out test. It quickly fell off her list and she didn’t apply there.
After the narrowing process, she was left with two colleges. Both of them seemed to be equally good choices, she had been accepted to both, and she could picture herself attending either school rather easily. So how should she make this decision?
Think through the reasons
I started by asking the opening question: “What are you seeking to accomplish by going to college?” This question was designed to help her think through her reasons for going at all and to consider what she most wanted from the experience. She responded that she wanted to get a degree so she could go on to graduate school; she wanted the opportunity to make friends and live away on her own, and she wanted what she called, “the college experience.”
Criteria to evaluate
Then I asked her, given that processing, what criteria she wanted to use for evaluating a college. Here are the options she generated in no particular order:
- good opportunities to make friends
- professors who are engaged and available
- good preparation for graduate school
- good financial package/pricing
- opportunities for fun off campus
- good study abroad program
- an acapella group
Compare options: Which is more important?
Then came the forced choice part. I asked her to compare each option with each other option and ask, “Which is more important?” No ties or passing, and sometimes she found the choices very difficult, such as when I asked, “Which is more important—a good financial package or a good study abroad program?” Whichever option she deemed more important got a tally mark, which created rankings.
So she made 21 choices– comparing each item with each other item. Here are the rankings she came up with. The tally marks at the end of each item reflect how many times that item was chosen over other items, resulting in a weighting of how important each item was to her.
- good financial package/pricing (6)
- good study abroad program (5)
- good opportunities to make friends (3)
- professors who are engaged an available (3)
- good preparation for graduate school (3)
- opportunities for off-campus fun (1)
- acapella group (0)
Some takeaways
The financial package held a lot of weight for her as she was concerned about going into debt. She really, really wants to study abroad– even more so than she had thought. An acapella group is just a nice-to-have, not an essential. Off-campus fun doesn’t mean as much to her as opportunities to make friends on campus.
She can now use these criteria—weighted by importance—in order to decide between colleges. And if two schools come out basically the same even when compared, there’s always the coin flip test: toss a coin in the air, call it, and when it lands gauge your level of disappointment or excitement.
What are some choices the kids in your life are currently facing? How might you use this exercise to help them make decisions that are most in line with what they value?
Tweetable: Is your son or daughter processing an important decision? One mom shares a coaching exercise she used that helped her daughter choose which university to attend. Click to Tweet
Apr 9, 2018 | Attachment
“We don’t ask each other questions. Instead, we speak—sometimes tweet—statements at each other.”*
What response do we get when we assert our own ideas before we attempt to understand the other person? What tone does this set in our family relationships and in social settings? Can children show us a better way?
Reminder #1: Questions form a bond
Haven’t we all answered a 3-year-old’s question, only to be asked and answered again—and again—and again? Finally it dawns on us that the child is bonding with us. The give-and-take of her Q &A session produces dialogue and dialogue forms bonds.
Reminder #2: Questions lead to self-awareness
I find that the “Would you rather…” questions work best with most kids. I get blank stares with general questions. For example, “Would you rather take piano lessons or painting lessons?” works better than, “What kind of lessons do you want to take?” in finding out how we can develop their innate talents.
Reminder #3: Questions strengthen critical thinking skills
Ellen Galinsky, author of Mind in the Making, suggests these questions: “What ideas do you have?” and “What do you think is happening here?” Respect responses whether you view them as correct or not. You could say, “That is interesting. Tell me why you think that.” Use phrases like “I am interested to hear your thinking about this.” “How would you solve this problem?”
Ask God questions
Children relate well to God when they form an image of a personal God, one who loves them, cares about them and knows them by name. I like to say “Let’s ask God about that and see how God answers us.” I do this with confidence because years ago I added question-asking to my own relationship with God. I began to hear the world around me with new ears and to see my environment with new eyes.
Through nonverbal cues and just plain acting out, kids remind us to ask them questions and provide them with choices.
“It’s hard, because we live in a world that is perfectly comfortable with making statements. And perfectly uncomfortable asking questions.”– Douglas Estes, assistant professor at South University Columbia, SC
*Douglas Estes
Tweetable: Kids can keep us from working so hard to get our point across because they respond so positively when, instead, we ask questions and offer choices. A good practice with peers too. Click to Tweet
Mar 5, 2018 | trust
I wrote a recent blog about children’s fear of dying. In response to that entry, a reader wrote me about the specific way school shootings play into that fear. She wrote: I think if a child asks a parent about dying these days, it is likely to be a fear of dying at school, shot to death by someone with a gun. The Columbine massacre occurred in 1999 – the year [my twin grandsons] were born – which means there are kids who have grown from infants to legal adulthood never knowing a world where school shootings don’t happen. It might be helpful to do another blog post addressing this distressing issue.
Here is that post.
From a spiritual perspective, a children’s fear of dying a violent death may center on two issues:
- I can’t count on God to protect me.
- How do I manage my fear and anxiety?
Issue #1 — I can’t count on God to protect me.
Yes… and no.
Yes.
God is powerful and he (or she) could make people stop the violence. He could make people do what’s right. Yes, he could, if he wanted to control people’s lives. He would have to eliminate choice so that no one ever chose to do wrong or make trouble again.
What kind of world would this be if God forced people to do right? Or insisted that they feel happy all the time? Wouldn’t God become the dictator of the whole world? What kind of person would you be? Your freedom would be gone. You could not make choices.
Violence is here to stay, and with it, people’s right to think their own kind or cruel thoughts, feel their own hate or love, do good or bad. God upholds humanity’s freedom, even when humanity doesn’t like the results.
… and no.
God does provide protection for you, but God — being invisible – often acts in hidden ways or unexplained paradoxes. You might not recognize God’s presence.
For example, God’s voice of protection is heard when courageous people speak up and report danger signs, thwarting violence. God is also protecting you when good people spread love and kindness in their community, especially toward those who are difficult to love. Sometimes when “prickly” people are offered a sense of belonging and dignity, they drop their plans to do harm, and we have been protected.
God does provide protection for you, but God neither guarantees us a long life nor a trouble-free life. It’s an unexplained paradox flowing from the loving heart of this supreme being.
Stay away from simplistic answers
So whatever you do as an adult, stay away from simplistic answers, such as, “It was God’s will that those people died and these people didn’t,” or, “Those who died were being punished. If you do what God wants, that won’t happen to you.” Answers like these are not only simplistic but can be extremely damaging to children’s evolving and developing views of God.
The truth is that none of us knows why bad things happen.
And we don’t know why they happen to some people and not others. This world containing evil is not the world we were created for and designed for, and there are no easy answers or guarantees. So how do we help kids manage their fear and anxiety over the unknowns?
Read Part 2– on helping children manage their fear and anxiety– next week.
Tweetable: A spiritual perspective on school shootings. It may be a useful piece for some children as they cope with their fears and anxiety around violence. Read more. Click to Tweet
Feb 12, 2018 | Direction
Today’s challenge is prompted by a reader’s feedback about my new book, Child-Centered Spirituality. He wrote, “While I was reading some of the pointers, affirmations and discussion questions for parents to use with their kids – I was struck by the fact that I really needed to ask forgiveness from a friend I had recently said some harsh things to. A passage in the book poked me in the eye. I did the deed of contrition – and got an instant reply of thanks and ‘reconciliation.’ All those questions we should be posing to children, we should be posing to ourselves too. So your book operated on another level for me – Thank you!”
Questions as a gateway into our own spiritual life
What questions does he mean? Questions that make kids think. Those uncovering our need for a searching and fearless moral inventory–questions that poke in the eye. Discovery questions for kids who know there’s a better way. Those leading to reflection. Regular self-reflection can become a key to talk more openly and naturally with the children in your life.
Start by journaling your responses to these questions, suggested by Larissa Marks
- In a few words or phrases, describe how you are presently doing.
- How have you experienced the divine lately?
- What has been life-giving? What has been life-draining?
- What things are presently occupying your mind and heart?
Then by all means, engage some people you trust in conversation around these matters. It can be a spiritual director, a trusted friend, or someone whose spiritual journey you respect. Being able to talk with others is critical. Engaging with others in a safe environment can be a surprisingly healing experience. After all, none of us is really in this alone. We all need others along the road with us as we travel.
Tweetable: Once in a while, sprinkle thought questions into your car conversations with kids. Questions about the bigger meaning of life or its big picture. Click to Tweet
Jun 26, 2017 | trust
Linda Sibley wrote: “One hard and fast rule of parenting is that you can’t take your kids any further than you have come yourself.” And no parent knows every healthy way of living emotionally, physically and spiritually. She continues,
“So we’re not only figuring out how to overcome our past experiences to make ourselves healthy, we also want to figure out how to make our homes healthier for our children. However, with no models to draw from in certain life skills, we wonder where to start. All we have to go on is what our family was like.
Here’s one way to start.
Set aside your natural instinct to put your children’s needs first and concentrate on yourself. Get prepared by asking yourself questions like these:
- What did I need from my parents that I did not get?
- What unhealthy skills did I learn as a child that I must unlearn now? (For example, poor communication, inability to feel and express your feelings, continually making poor choices for yourself.)
- What words did I hear in my home that I wish had never been said?
- What words did I need to hear that no one ever said to me?
Have trouble remembering?
Maybe it would help to….
- Set aside time to be alone.
- Write it down.
- Share the questions with a trusted family member(s) for their observations and impressions.
As you answer these questions for yourself, you will gain valuable insight about what your children need from you. Then keep reading next week…..
Break the “Don’t” Rules in upcoming posts.
- Don’t Talk
- Don’t Trust
- Don’t Feel
Linda Sibley gave me permission to share all of these ideas of hers. For more from Linda, search Child-Centered Spirituality for Choices
Tweetable: Answer these 4 questions and you might gain valuable insight about what your children need from you. Click to Tweet
