insight and inspiration has led me to the realisation that there will be many other people in the world who are looking for more guidance and support to enable them to be more confident in carrying out their parenting roles, and so the idea for writing this book came about. The more people with whom I have shared the idea to write the book, the more encouraged I have become about the need for parents to be able to ask those Better Questions. Whilst I certainly do not have the magic wand and cannot promise that the ideas I am about to share with you will provide all the answers you are looking for, I do know that this simple idea to ask more questions will have a profound impact on your quest to be a better parent.
So, I humbly request that you forgive my lack of parenting skills on the basis that I am highly competent in the skill I share with you in this book and, most importantly, recognise that it has the potential to have a profound impact on your ability to be a great parent, which after all is something that the majority of parents strive to be.
Throughout this book I use the terms ‘child’ and ‘kids’, and whilst generally I am talking about the age range of toddlers to late teens, the principles apply just as profoundly across all age ranges. My best advice is to use these skills with children from a very young age on the basis that you are instilling some foundational skills that can be built upon as your child matures into a responsible adult. The techniques shared throughout the book can be used successfully with all kids, recognising that there will be some subtle differences in approaches dependent upon their brain development, attention span and foundational ability to take responsibility for decision-making and actions. Of course, the skills absolutely apply to adult children, and as a parent who starts to use the skill of asking Better Questions with them, I am sure that you will be respected more for respecting them as adults.
As a final thought for my introduction, I trust that you will recognise that whilst this book is written in the context of parenting, by the time you have read it you will realise that being a Better Questioner in any aspect of your life, whether friendships, partnerships or work, will be a great thing to do. Indeed, everyone we interact with is far more amazing than they realise, and having the skill to release their amazingness is a beautiful life skill to bring to all contexts of your life!
What people say about our workshops
The inspirational and profound messages contained in this book have been delivered to thousands of people in our workshops. Here are some comments from people who have attended them:
•I have taken so much from your training that has been very valuable in recent weeks.
•I personally got a lot out of it and have had some great success with the strategies, not only on an everyday basis at work but also at a family level with our 16-year-old son!
•I have seen change with one of the staff that I manage, in that instead of asking how she should resolve a problem, she indicates now what she suggests would resolve it.
•You have inspired me to look very closely at the questions I ask people, not only in my workplace but also at home. It has been a wonderful experience and I can see how someone can become more empowered and also gain confidence to become a better listener.
•Thank you very much for making me understand that Better Questions are definitely the right answers, and I’m going to try hard to enhance these skills in everyday use.
•I have a tendency to jump in and recommend without listening to a staff member’s opinion. The Better Questions approach is the only way that staff can learn and develop in their practice.
•Thank you for sharing this amazing tool and for inspiring me to look at all people in a way they deserve to be treated.
•If I hadn’t listened and used Better Questions well, I would have just accepted it when one of our staff members resigned and we as an organisation would have lost a dynamic, highly skilled person, not to mention all the wasted time, effort and expense of orientating someone to the organisation.
•You have changed my life and I thank you.
•I was totally blown away by your insights.
•Just wanting to let you know that I have been inspired by many people in my life, but you are up there with the best. I have a long way to go to get the questions right but am now aware of what I am doing wrong so will continue to work on getting it right. Thank you so very much and keep up the fantastic work. Everyone needs to hear you speak.
•Thank you for the opportunity to become more aware of myself, and of things I can do to enjoy my work and life more!
•I have heard such a positive buzz around the office in response to your Better Questions training, which is just wonderful!
Prologue
Once upon a time there was a humble and boring question mark. He had been described as ‘boring’ because his role in life was to simply sit at the end of a sentence. Indeed, the role of the question mark was simply to make a sentence into a question. BIG DEAL!
What this little question mark found sad was that in the past great scholars had recognised the amazing qualities of his ancestor question marks, and people like Socrates and Plato had hailed them as heroes. But here he is today, living his life in the 21st century, unrecognised and unappreciated, and he feels sad that so few people appreciate his potential.
One day, a lady came along who saw his potential, and she used his abilities for many years with her clients with life-changing results. He became great friends with this lady, and she started to get so excited about his potential to make the world a better place that she asked his permission to write a book and a website about him.
This lady was aware that if more people knew about him, they would be able to tap into the potential of other people by empowering these people to make decisions that are right for them. She also knew that they could use him to enable them to be more reflective in making better decisions about their own lives and, ultimately, the choices they were making about the way they were living.
Whilst he was still a little shy and very humble, he liked the idea of being able to share his potential with the world through this lady and, sure enough, his fame started to spread far and wide.
In this book you are going to be introduced to and be inspired by the humble question mark – he really does change lives and can make parents into even better parents.
Introduction
From a very young age most of us have been told what to do. During my formative years I was surrounded by people who were excellent at providing much-needed advice and guidance, particularly my school teachers and my parents, who adopted a more traditional style of parenting, and so I learnt early in life to be a more natural ‘teller’. This ‘telling’ style continued to develop as I became an adult, in part because it was ‘role modelled’ to me in the various workplace settings of which I was involved, as well as in social settings. By way of clarification, what I mean by the word ‘teller’ is someone who does some or all of the following: directs, advises, suggests, problem-solves, informs.
As ‘telling’ was the most common way of being ‘role modelled’ to me, I became practiced at taking this on as a natural response when I was presented with a problem by others or was asked for advice. Indeed, I unconsciously related this way to people
