1 moment. 1 pattern. 1 MicroStep. 1 question.

1 MOMENT

When you genuinely want to hear all of it. And then you answer for them.

A mom I work with told me this in a session.

Her daughter came home, dropped her bag, and said: “Nobody talked to me at lunch.”

And this mom - concerned, paying attention, listening - said,

“Well, did you try sitting somewhere new? What about Jess? Sometimes you have to be the one who makes the first move. You know how you can be a little quiet sometimes.”

Her daughter looked at her for a second.

Then picked up her bag and went upstairs.

The mom came to our next session, distraught, ”Why won’t she listen to anything I say? I don't know what happened.”

I knew what happened. I'd done the same thing a hundred times.

1 PATTERN

Eighty-three percent of the moms who come to me say their kid doesn't listen.

So I started asking a different question. Do we? 

When our children are small we talk at them, over them, around them.
We explain what happened, what caused it, how they should feel, and what they should do about it. 

It works fine . . .  when they're four. 

By the time they're nine or twelve or fifteen, they've learned something we didn't mean to teach them: that talking to us means getting a response they didn't ask for.

So they stop. Not dramatically. Just quietly. A little less each time.

This mom wasn't a bad listener. She was a fixer. Most of us are. When our kids hurt, we want to move them through it as fast as possible. 

The problem is that moving them through it is our agenda, not theirs. 

And they can feel the difference.

1 MICROSTEP

This one is simple and slightly uncomfortable.  

The next time your child tells you something hard — “I didn't get invited,” “I failed the test,” “Nobody sat with me,” . . .

Don't fix it.
Don't reframe it.
Don't ask three questions in a row.

Just say back what they said. Their words, not yours.

“Nobody sat with you at lunch.”

That's it.
And then stop talking.
Wait.
Let the silence do the work.

I call it Parroting: literally repeating back what you they said.
It can feel like you're not doing enough. You are. You're telling them: I heard you. I'm not trying to change what you said. I'm just here.

When kids feel heard they keep talking. And when they keep talking they start to figure things out — not because you guided them there, but because you got out of the way.

And something else happens.
When you stop talking, you get curious. Really curious.
Not about what to say next - about what she's going to say.

“Yeah, Jess had to make up a test.”

“Oh, she had a makeup during lunch?”

“And the other girls were all squished together so there was no room at that table.”
“Oh my gosh - sounds like a small table.”

“Yeah, so I just sat at the end of the other table. Tomorrow, I’m going to try and get there earlier. Is there anything else for snack?”

1 QUESTION

The next time your child tells you something, try Parroting. 

Just once. And see what you learn.

And let me know what happened. I read every one.

Mary
Creator, the MicroStep Method®