In this world of ever-present technology, accelerating pace of life and increasing mental health issues, many parents are concerned about how to bring up their children to be resourceful, responsible and happy. We want the very best for them, so we can feel completely stuck when we hear “I wasn’t picked for the school team again”, or “I can’t do this homework, I’m stupid” and we get especially frustrated when they tell us “I’m not eating that!”. In my workshops and seminars I introduce parents to four themes to help them increase their child’s resourcefulness: emotional, physical, mental and social resilience. The most important of these is helping children to understand and manage their emotions, so this is always where we start.
Enabling your child to recognise their own feelings is one of the greatest gifts you can offer them. Unfortunately, and unintentionally, we begin to deprive them of this gift very early on in their lives. Our children say “I’m hungry” and we say “You can’t be hungry, you’ve only just had lunch.” Or they say “I hate Alex” and we say “No you don’t, Alex is your best friend!”. In these instances, not only are we not listening to our children, we are denying their feelings as well. It is this, more than anything else, which can be so damaging to mental health. So how do we listen, and more importantly, show that we’re listening? When our children floor us with comments like those above, I encourage parents to look at things through a different LENS:
- Listen and stop what you’re doing, look at your child and really pay attention
- Empathise and nod and make encouraging sounds like “Hmmm” and “uh-huh” but don’t say anything yet!
- Notice and name the feeling and when they have finished, say “It sounds as though you’re upset / disappointed / cross / fed up [insert relevant feeling].”
- Stop talking
When we’re tired, in a hurry, or stressed and frustrated ourselves, it can feel very difficult to do this, but it is so worth it. The day after running my workshop A Toolkit for Raising Resilient Children at a local school, I had this wonderful e-mail from Anna, one of the delegates: Sammy, my three year old son started a pre-bedtime meltdown. To which I just listened. Sammy was screaming. He stopped screaming instantaneously when he realised I was listening to him and I had ‘labelled’ how he was feeling frustration. He then looked puzzled and said ‘Mummy, why aren’t you talking?’ I said ‘Because I was listening to you. What do you think we should do now?’ he said ‘Go to bed Mummy’. Oh my goodness, what a result!
Anna had used the LENS technique to listen to Sammy and show him she was empathising with him – that she really understood what was going on for him in his three-year-old world. And that’s often all a child needs: to feel that the grown-up in their life ‘gets it’ (whether that child is three, 10 or 17). So, how does the LENS technique work for those tricky moments mentioned above?
| Child’s dilemma | What you might typically say | Try LENS instead… | Comments |
| “I wasn’t picked for the school team again.” | “That’s just wrong. I’m going to call the Games Teacher.” | Stop what you’re doing, look them in the eye, pause (maybe give them a hug) and say “That sucks. I bet you feel really disappointed after all the training you’ve done.” | Sit on any of your own not-being-picked-for-the-school-team gremlins. Remember this is about how your child feels, not you. |
| “I can’t do this homework, I’m stupid!” | “Of course you’re not! Here, show me and let me help.” | “Sometimes maths problems can be really tricky and it makes you feel frustrated when you can’t get it straight away.” | This is often enough to switch them from ‘fixed mindset’ into ‘growth mindset’ and get them going again. |
| “I’m not eating that!” | “Don’t you know there are children starving in Africa!” | “I can see that you really don’t feel like eating mince today.” | Resist the urge to then say “But I’ve cooked it so you’ll eat it”! In fact, avoid saying ‘but’ at all. |
To begin with it can feel really counter-intuitive to do and say these things, but often in our hurry to solve the problem, make our children feel better or get them to co-operate, we forget to acknowledge how they are feeling. The sooner they can work out how they are feeling and know that we understand, the quicker they can work out a solution for themselves. And you’ll be amazed how often they do!