Taking Advice

I've gotten some feedback about the blog and I really appreciate all of it.  My aim is to create a space where my readers can feel they're understood and supported.  My goal is to help each and every person find a safe haven where it's ok that your kid just painted the wall with their diaper or your teenager just exploded and stormed out of the house - where you realize it doesn't mean you did something wrong or you're a bad parent.  And you know that you're gonna survive this thing and you're not doing too bad at managing it and retaining your humanity.  And maybe you'll pick up a few tips and tricks to help you along the way.

So when someone gave me feedback that I should make it more personal and less generic I thought it was a great idea.  It turned me from less of a preacher of parenting to a fellow parent who has gained some ideas along the way to share.  My first thought was to tell you my life story - show you what makes me who I am and what I am.  What battlegrounds I've trod and what they've taught me.  Truth be told, that approach really didn't bother me - I like to view my life circumstances as my reality and not something I'm some sort of victim of - I didn't cause most things to happen, they just happen to be my life - but some of my kids were not so wild about it.  The life I live, the story that is me, is also other people's story.  They didn't all want their story broadcast for every stranger to know.  So I decided to tweak it.  And it gave me an idea for this post.

To start - my tweaked idea of who I am so you can know why you'd ever want to listen to me about parenting.  I have 6 amazing and wildly different kids.  They range in age from college to elementary school at the current time (2 years ago we thought we could win a prize for most children in different school stages - having one in college, one studying abroad, one in high school, middle school, elementary and nursery).  Aside from completely different personalities, we've also been through some unique circumstances - we've battled intense illness over the years and thankfully have overcome a lot but gained tremendous perspective on life from those situations.  There are a lot of other details I could fill in but I won't for their privacy sake.  What I will try to do, from here on out, is include more real life anecdotes to help my ideas and thoughts be more useful.

On to the main idea I wanted to discuss today - how to take advice.  Giving advice seems easy because we can just say what we're thinking and let it out.  But usually that is not super effective and there are better ways of delivering a message than just putting them out there.  Especially if we want the advice to be taken.  That will have to be the subject of a separate post.  Today I want to talk about taking advice, because advice is a hard pill to swallow.  For anyone.  Any time.  No one wants to hear something about themselves that someone else thinks is less than perfect.  We all want to see ourselves a certain way and it is hard to hear we need to change.  This is no less true when we're older.  Try taking advice from someone you love and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The main problem I've encountered with taking advice is that the first reaction most people have is to become defensive.  It is our human response to either take flight or defend ourselves when we feel attacked.  Even advice given well can be hard to take.  The most impressive thing to me is watching someone take advice and immediately consider it without any push back.

A few months ago I was running with my running partners and I put this question out to them.  One of my friends is an incredible listener.  They're always joking around when we run about how I can just talk the whole time (to be honest, I was like oh no, I obviously talk too much - but they were actually commenting on my lung capacity - that should be the subject of another post - what people say and what we hear).  What I realized was that they are incredible listeners and so I asked them how can I become a better listener?  They gave me a few good pointers which I’ll use as part of my how tos.

First, don’t talk back immediately - let the person talking really talk before you jump in.
Second, affirm what you heard by repeating it briefly (so you feel x,y, z)
Third, ask questions to clarify the topic at hand
Last, don’t necessarily respond immediately - try to step back and consider the topic before formulating a response.

Teaching kids to take advice well is, as usual, a lot about modeling behavior. When they come to us we have to listen and consider their points. We can’t always have a formulated opinion on their issues before the discussions begin. If we want them to listen to and heed our advice we have to show them it’s not a one way street.

 But we also have to realize advice isn’t a directive. It’s an idea and we can choose what parts of it we integrate into our response and behavior. Kids have their own world views, even at a really young age and especially as they come into their teenage years. They’re not going to agree to our exact view of things every time. Yes, there will be times they buy into the whole idea but those will be few and farther between. As long as they hear what we have to say, consider it and come up with a viable solution they have “taken” our advice.

Recently I was having a discussion with one of my teenagers. We were disagreeing about some safety protocols for the car. I was of the belief that they needed to slow it down and use more caution. Somehow between when I taught them to drive and the discussion they’d lost all sense of caution and understanding that a car is a really powerful machine which can do damage if not managed properly. I made some mistakes during the conversation (which we’ll discuss in the giving advice section) and so did they. Instead of hearing what I had to say the immediate response was “you’re paranoid mom and I’m a good driver.”  I was totally shut out before the discussion even got underway. Had they tried to be a more active listener they may have heard my point - exercise more caution - without disregarding me entirely. To be honest I do think they are checking themselves a little more because even when kids seem to ignore us I’m fairly certain they hear some of what we say.

So to call it a wrap - teaching kids to take advice is mostly about helping them become active listeners, realizing that even if they don’t take all of what we say and put it into action that’s ok as long as they take some pieces of it (or devise another alternative) and come up with a reasonable course of action or solution.