I have 3 daughters. I’ve told them so many important lessons; don’t touch the hot stove, look both ways before crossing the street, don’t talk to strangers, don’t eat yellow snow – all the important stuff.
As they grow older I also try to advise them how not to be manipulated. How to respect yourself at a high school party. How to respectfully make a teacher listen that you didn’t understand the lesson. How to respectfully disagree.
We all know that with kids, teenagers especially, it’s in one ear and out the other. My best guess is that about 15% of what I tell them is retained and helps them navigate life.
Sooooooo, I wait for the really teachable moments. Right after they screwed up, got hurt, were deceived, were disappointed, were bullied, In talking to them in those moments I was able to give real teachable moments.
All 3 of my girls have been bullied, excluded, ridiculed and embarrassed in front of their peers. They’ve all been winded by surprising actions of people they thought they could trust. They’ve all encountered an adult who is difficult to find respect for.
I truly love these teaching moments. It feels like these are the true life lessons that will help them always. If they can get these lessons now they will hopefully be less hurt, or more self reflective and able to adeptly adjust. For we all know, as Oprah has told us, that lessons will keep coming around until you learn them.
So, on to those lessons. And although these are what I teach my girls, they are every bit as important for us “grown up girls” too. I have had personal growth from each of these lessons.
- Reflect. What do you want in this situation? If you are storming away from an argument, once you are calmer you’re probably able to say you didn’t want to crush the spirit of the other person, you just wanted to be heard. When you can reflect and understand “I want to be heard” then you can tackle the situation very differently. What doesn’t work is thinking “I want them to shut up, go away, be somebody else, do something else”, which leads to lesson 2.
- Personal responsibility. The ONLY person you can control is yourself. Blame eases the responsibility off your plate and on to the other persons. How much power to change the situation do you have once you’ve dumped that junk “over there”? It’s still there, but now you are just hoping that it bothers someone else enough that they’ll get rid of it for you. A tiresome procedure. What you can do right now is go back to lesson 1, reflect on what you want for you, and get into action.
- Do not try and guess other people’s intentions. Everyone has an agenda, whether it is full of kindness or full of self preservation, it is there. When my girls are devastated at the behaviour of others I consider this an important lesson. We don’t know the other persons full story. We don’t know what they need to do to feel good about themselves. It sure is wrong of them to take 5 other people and ridicule you in front of your class. Remember, that speaks more about who they are than who you are. Please, please, please don’t change who you are to try and make that person or group of people happy. It NEVER works. So, what’s a girl to do? Go back to lessons 1 and 2 (I told you these lessons get a lot of air time).
- When you feel bad you do bad. My girls are not always the “victims” (I’m careful when using this word because I never want them to feel powerless). They have unkind moments too. As I see them happen in family life I am able to take them aside and ask “what’s going on?”. When I do this with a feeling of, I’m checking in to see if you are ok because this isn’t like you, the relief and sadness that comes out is powerful. If I can teach them to notice when their impact is negative and reflect back to themselves then they grow and potentially the other person does too (certainly they’ll have a better interaction with my girls at the very least). If they are able to understand that they were behaving badly because they felt hurt, tired, hungry, threatened, undermined or just plain bitchy, then they could do a pretty quick re-adjust.
- Be kind. To everyone. Granted some people are harder to be kind to than others but we don’t know peoples stories. As my kids figure out the personal responsibility bit and wonder “shouldn’t everyone be responsible for their own actions?”, I tell them that is true but again remind them that they are only responsible for THEIR OWN behaviour and how they treat someone is up to them. I tell them they must still have their own boundaries, and while they are with someone they can still be kind, even if the kindest thing they can do is smile and tell them goodbye.
So, these are the 5 lessons I seem to be constantly teaching in my home. The biggest take away I want for my girls, myself, and people in general, is self awareness. You can’t change what you don’t know is there.
Even a simple change in perspective can have huge impact.
Self discovery and development!!!! I seriously love this stuff!!