How to influence your kids without force or projection

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Full Transcript
All mothers want to have a positive influence on their children. And sometimes that strong desire to really influence them can actually get in the way of the kind of influence we want to have on our children.

We’re going to share three ways to influence your children, without using force and also without projecting on to them. And in a way that it will actually be received and be effective.

1) Expectations and assumptions- make them consciously:

It's so important to look at the expectations and the assumptions you have on your children in the moment. Generally our expectations are affected by all the other moments we remember our children being in. So for example, if your four year old has been hitting other children a lot lately, you're probably going to be expecting that they may hit someone when you go out in public (eg. to a playground or a friends party). You are likely to be focusing on and driven by your fear that your child may hit and having an assumption and expecting something is likely to happen is likely to create that outcome.

It's so important to be aware of your expectations, because they actually create outcomes.

A solid example of this power of expectations is in a study that was done by an American psychologist. He set up an experiment where a certain amount of new teachers to a school were all told that there were three exceptional, gifted students, across the board in all areas in their classes. They were told who those students were (they were all told the same) and they were asked not to tell the students at all.

What the teachers had been told was however was all made up. The students were not anymore exceptional, gifted students than any other, nor had they taken any tests.

As the school year went by without the teachers saying anything, those three students came top of the year, over and over again, and excelled over and over again with their results... And they hadn't actually beforehand.

So, the results of that test were that, those teachers, internally having that expectation of those students, created that result. Their expectations were so powerful that they actually affected the actions of the students.

The solution to this problem is to come back to assuming best intent. And you may have heard that before, a bit of a catch phrase, but we really want you to step outside of the catchphrase aspect of it and actually come back to really, truly assuming best intent. So how do you do that? Coming back to the belief that your child is a good person and is doing the best that they can with what they have in the moment. So really making that assumption that they are a whole, completely loving child who is doing the absolute best that the can.

Together with assuming best intent, is also assuming that anything is possible in this moment. You don’t need to have an assumption that they might be this way, or another, very specific assumption that you might be let down upon if they then don't do it.

Concentrate on knowing that anything is possible and assume best intent, and that's the best energy to bring into any moment with.

2) Choose how you give feedback:

This is about acknowledging what they're doing right and what's going well. Acknowledging the times when, no matter how small it was, it was a step in the right direction. Acknowledging when they're serving you and the other people and when they're choosing actions that actually benefit everybody.

Quite often we don't acknowledge those moments, we don't physically go to them and acknowledge them. "I've really noticed how you did this, and I really appreciate it.”

This is not about praise, this is not about trying to control or manipulate the situation. It's not about this, "Good boy, good girl," type scenario. It's about focusing on what you actually want and what actually serves everybody instead of focusing on the behaviour that you want to get rid of.

Because generally if there's something that's really bothering you, like for example the hitting that we mentioned before, your focus will be on when they are hitting someone and making sure that stops. You’ll be giving feedback like, "That hitting was wrong, don't do that.” You're focusing on what you don't want, and the focus on what you don't want amplifies what you don't want.

Instead, focus on what is working, on what you're appreciating.

Turn your feedback around to those moments when they do hold back and they don't hit. Or the moments when they say something really special to someone else. Those moments when they come and give you a hug. Those moments when they help you out.
The more you acknowledging those moments, then the more they'll grow.

For example, the first time my (Lisa) daughter made me a cup of tea, I acknowledged it and I was really grateful for it. This was not with the intent to control her and get her to make me cups of tea all the time, just my heartfelt appreciation and acknowledgment. "Thank you so much, I love that you made me a cup of tea,". An outcome of that was, for the next week or so, I got endless cups of tea coming at me. And even now years later, I still get cups of tea.

Acknowledging what you want more of is the key to being influential in that situation.

3) Know the situation before you try to be influential:

Don’t overlay your stuff or your story on top of your child.

Let’s say your child is facing a disappointment or they're feeling sad. Something has ended that they didn't want to end or a friend has moved away. Often we're coming from a place of empathy, trying to understand what they might be feeling, so we can support them. So that we can help them. Sometimes parents forget that we need to check in with them and really find out what they're feeling before we can effectively do that.

We might assume that our child feels really sad, feels rejected or feels lonely, we make all those assumptions.

And if we try to influence from that place, from that place of assumption, what we can end up doing is overlaying that story onto our child and they go, "Oh, should I be feeling that?"  (Which is influential, but is creating a lot of other troubles that they didn't necessarily even have in the first place, we're projecting our shit onto them).

Another possible outcome (if you come to help, laden with assumptions about how they’re feeling and you don't check in first) is that you won’t be influential at all, because from their perspective, you're just talking nonsense because it’s so far from the story that's going on for them.

So to be influential, you need to be attentive and clear on what is really going on. The way that you do that is to check in with your child. You listen and get them talking about how they're feeling. How did that impact them? What are they thinking? Because until you have that information, it's difficult to be influential and helpful and supportive.

Try out any of these three tips.
1) Be aware of your expectations, because they create outcomes.
2) Focus on what you appreciate, give feedback from that space.
3) Check in with them to ensure that you're not projecting your story onto them.