the way to approach the conversation, rather than being the fountain of all knowledge, you will immediately start to tap into the potential of your kids and the dynamics of your relationship will shift to a more positive, empowering and engaging one.
It will be good to explore the ‘asking’ space a little further, so let me share an example of when I was able to support a client with a goal she had. In this example, you will see that I had no idea how to help her in a traditional ‘telling’ sense, but by asking her Better Questions she was able to be resourceful and find the answers herself. This particular client had come to me because she wanted to make a number of changes in her life – and one of these changes was that she wanted to get fit and run a marathon. What was interesting for me to acknowledge was that I was unable to stand in the ‘telling’ space because I had never run a marathon; I had no personal experience of having to train for a marathon, and I also couldn’t draw on expertise from experiences of friends or family as they had never run a marathon either. I hope you can see that I couldn’t be teacher, trainer, educator, expert or mentor – I could only be an ‘asker’.
This was one of my first conscious experiences of being an ‘asker’ rather than a ‘teller’, and whilst I confess to feeling a little apprehensive because I wasn’t able to help in the traditional way by giving advice, I stuck to the principles I knew about asking Better Questions. I have to say that I was amazed by how resourceful my client was and how she was able to find her own answer to her problem. It wasn’t that she was incapable of finding answers to achieve her goal, it was that she had not given herself enough focused time (and the right questions) to enable her to find the strategy that was going to work for her. Using the skills that I am going to share with you throughout this book, she was not only able to identify her success strategy, but within a matter of a few months she was able to put it into place to successfully run her first half marathon.
I share this story so that you can see that when you can’t provide answers to problems, you can still help your kids to find answers themselves by asking Better Questions. Indeed, I will make the point that we will revisit later: when we don’t have the answer to something, it is often easier to be an ‘asker’ because then we cannot be tempted to jump in and give them advice that inhibits their resourcefulness.
It’s not often that we can make a case for not having all the answers, but in my experience being an ‘asker’ rather than a ‘teller’ frequently enables us to be better parents. When you always have an answer to something or play the role of the expert you are often tempted to be ‘tellers’, and it is this issue that will be your greatest challenge to becoming more of an ‘asker’ and a true Potentialiser using those Better Questions.
Chapter 2
Your role as parent
In the last chapter, I focused on the general hats that we wear in our lives, and I am sure that you will recognise that the roles discussed very much relate to parenting and immediately it becomes clear that many aspects of these hats typically sit more traditionally in the telling space. I say ‘more traditionally’ because in many instances the parenting role is undertaken from a place of learnt behaviour from our own experiences – very rarely is it undertaken from a place of conscious choice. In this chapter I invite you to reflect upon the choices you wish to make about your parenting, given that up until now the choices you have made may well be unconsciously made rather than consciously decided upon.
The starting point for this reflection is to consider your mindset, because what you think drives your behaviours, actions and, ultimately, the results you achieve as a parent. I find that before we can look at changing anything, we have to start by looking at the way we are and the beliefs that sit behind our current behaviour. When we look closely at our beliefs, we frequently find that what we think isn’t something that we have chosen; it is something that has become programmed into our brains through:
•historic experiences or perceived experiences
•being passed on by relations/friends/significant people in our lives
•the media
•religious teachings
•cultural norms
•conforming to popular opinion or the ‘normal’ way of doing things.
Rarely do we make conscious choices about what we believe, and it can be shocking to realise how much of our thinking is based on conforming to set views rather than on independent, well-considered, rational thought. We have a natural tendency to go with the crowd and to conform, and most of the time we don’t even realise we are doing it.
In our society there are many well-intended and strongly opinionated people who are ready to jump in and offer advice to new parents, and whilst often this is useful initially, it is interesting to be aware that we are starting to be inducted into a way of doing things, and the conforming starts without most of us being conscious that we aren’t making choices about what we’d prefer to do. Whilst I accept that very often advice received is beneficial, I would like to suggest that it isn’t always good to make everyone fit into the same box.
Therefore, two good questions to consider at the outset are: “What are my expectations of my role as a parent?” and “How do I want to go about meeting these expectations?” Very often some of this is outlined to you by societal expectations and guidelines and, in the early days, by the experts you come across in your new parenting role. There are very often subconscious messages that you receive that will provide guidance without you even realising it. How often do people willingly give you some friendly advice about what you should and shouldn’t do to be successful as a parent? Whilst the messages are frequently subtle, it is interesting to note the impact they have on you and your thinking, which in turn will affect the way in which you fulfil your role.
Self-reflection
A good way to become aware of your practices is to do some honest self-reflection about the way that you are approaching your role. Whilst we often espouse certain values or behaviours, the reality is that no one knows that we consider those values or behaviours to be particularly important because they are not apparent from what we do on a day-to-day basis.
I have known people who say that they value being honest, but if you ask people who know them whether they view that person as being honest, they will probably laugh at you and tell you that they are manipulative and not very truthful! So, we should honestly reflect on recognising that we have ideals about how we’d like to be, but our actual practice may not meet those ideals, and the reality and experience of others is frequently different to ours.
One powerful way that you can carry out this honest self-reflection is to ask yourself what others might say about you if they were asked to give a short description of your parenting style. If you have high self-awareness, there is a good chance that you will be fairly accurate with this. However, if you genuinely have no idea how you are perceived and are courageous enough to ask, then why not ask your partner or some other people who know you well informally how they would describe you? Indeed, you may really benefit from asking your kids to share some insights – feedback can certainly be an enlightening experience!
In addition, another great question you can ask yourself in this reflective space is “How would I like others to describe me when talking about my parenting?” This is a very powerful question to ask, in that it invites you to think about your vision for your ideal parenting style rather than the reality of your parenting, which may
