Parenting Isn’t About You

When we wrote our book Everybody Fights, So Why Not Get Better At It we talked about magic words in a relationship. There are phrases you can say during discussions or arguments that help bring down the temperature or help each other open up. For example, we have a section about active listening that we still use all the time. These are phrases like: “Tell me more about that” and “Here’s what I heard you say. Did I get that right?” 

So when we decided to have our friend, Dr. Hope Seidel on the podcast this week, we wanted to know what the magic words were in parenting. Surely there had to be some, right? 

Wow, were we in for a wake-up call. 

You Don’t Have To Fix It

Dr. Hope Seidel always helps us reframe what parenting is all about. When I asked her about magic words to help my kids open up, she asked me why I needed them to open up to me. Obviously, I want to help them process things that are weighing on them, but I was approaching it all wrong. “So it’s really important for you to notice that when you introduce yourself in a conversation with that energy, you’re making the conversation more about you than about them,” explained Dr. Hope. She was so right. Is wanting our kids to open up something that will help them, or is it really something that we need? We were making it about us. 

If our kids have a problem, it’s hard as parents not to want to try to fix it for them. But it’s important to raise kids who can fix their own problems or recognize when they can’t and know what to do next. It’s important to give them life skills they can take with them. It’s also important to be curious about them. 

Time To Get Curious 

Along with the reframing, Dr. Hope Seidel also gave us tools we can use for hard conversations, how to parent with grace, and how to genuinely be more curious. We regrouped after our chat with her and we even brought PC onto the podcast to help us with our Top 5 this week.

What did you learn from Dr. Hope Seidel? Tell us in the comments!