Do you want to know the best kept secret to great parenting? (Yup, thought so). It’s understanding your child’s perspective. This is big!
Study after study has shown that understanding your child’s perspective has a bigger positive impact on your children than most other things you do. If that wasn’t clear, read it again!
It is not always intuitive to know how your child views the world. It is not always easy to crawl inside her mind, either. Yet, this is the most important work of parenting. Parenting is a job with a constantly changing job description. But, if you master this one skill, your job suddenly gets a lot easier!
Are you really too busy or too preoccupied to develop the single most important skill to being a good parent?
You may be asking: But how can I possibly know what my child is thinking?
Tuning in to another person’s perspective has three levels:
- see – Think spatially. Literally, consider how your child sees the world. Hint: if you are blessed with the ability to remember how you saw things as a kid, then you’ll be one step ahead. If not, reflect on Alice in Wonderland. Like ants, children are small. Therefore, everything else looks much bigger. Also, things often appear more vivid and illustrative.
- think – Imagine how your child thinks. Rather than imagining yourself in that situation, imagine your child in that situation. This can be an elusive concept to many, so I’ll come back to it in future posts.
- feel – Try to understand how something might affect your child even if it does not affect you.
Some benefits for parents:
- Life with kids will feel easier.
- You will enjoy your kids more and have more patience with them.
- You will be the role model you want to be by modeling this level of understanding and compassion.
Some benefits for children:
- Children will feel understood and respected
- Children will feel better about themselves and more connected with you.
- Children will learn from your example how to be less self-centered and more concerned with others feeling.
I won’t pretend this does not take thought and consideration. It’s not a band-aid approach to parenting struggles. Rather, it’s an entire parenting paradigm; one that offers tremendous value to your relationship with your child.
Like all significant relationships, you must develop the ability to understand the other person in order for the relationship to be successful and thrive. This ability to step outside of your own viewpoint is a remarkable capability of the human mind. Use it!
Considering the child’s perspective is a significant and unique aspect of my coaching. If you’d like to learn more about understanding your child’s perspective, then subscribe here. Join in the conversation and follow along as I further dissect this parenting paradigm in subsequent posts.
Related posts:
- Expectations, Assumptions, and Other Reasons You May Not See Your Child Clearly
- The World According to Your Child
- Crawling Inside Your Child’s Mind
- What is My Child Thinking?
many times i literally bend down to see what my 3 year old can see, oh boy, i am always surprised.
looking forward to all your future posts.
tali