A Note From the Head of School:
The Reality of Perspective
One concept I have come to appreciate is that a person's perspective is their reality. It's easy to say, but not always an easy idea to understand from the age of 1 to 100. This is especially true when we believe our opinion, perspective, or thought is correct. For children, coaching them see beyond their "personal reality" takes considerable practice at each developmental phase they grow through.
In helping our children to navigate the social world we live in, we try our very best to keep our children safe, feel loved, and be loveable. With that goal in mind, sometimes we have to say no, we have to tell our children when they have misbehaved, when their choices are not safe, when they are not being their best selves, or we believe that their perspective is off.
Psychologists warn us about what happens when people argue and defend their perspectives and opinions. Often those opinions actually will become more ingrained. There is also the aspect of inertia. People experience something called "cognitive dissonance" when they feel uneasy with the new information they are learning clashes with their existing knowledge or thoughts. Psychological studies show that most people would rather dismiss information than reshape their world views to accommodate this new perspective. You can see why trying to have your child change her mind may be harder than you think.
Here are so helpful hints for helping to open your child's perspective:
- Try to remain neutral in your response, even if you think their perspective is completely "whackadoodle" or their request is out of line. Using tone, sarcasm, or yelling at them will not alleviate the situation. Most likely, they will focus more on how you are saying something versus what you are saying. Take a breath.
- Remember their perspective is their reality.
- Ask questions. They will depend on the situation. Examples could be: What do you think happened? Why is this important to you? How will this help you? How do I know you will be safe? What do you think I am going to say about this? What facts do you have to support this?
- Validate their perception even if it means just rephrasing what they believe.
- Problem-solve together. Use questions like, "I wonder what we could do be better next time? I know we can figure out a way to make this better. What other activities can you do instead?
- If prudent, offer a personal experience in which you were in a similar situation and learned from it.
- Go back to the big picture (safety, showing your best self, etc.)
- Render your decision/perspective. Stick to it. If your child has misbehaved, remind them that you will always love them, but you do not like the action they have done.
- Follow through with anything you problem-solved together.
- If the first "plan" doesn't work after a day or so, visit the process again.
- If needed, write everything down so your child has a visual resource to refer to.
By trying to build bridges of understanding with your child, it stops the pattern of behavior of children becoming highly invested in the "fight" versus seeing the big picture issue. What I sometimes see with teenagers is that they can become fixated on a detail versus the big picture issue. They fail to understand the big picture. When people get really upset, they often are in the reptilian part of their brain which means they are unable to access their frontal lobe which is critical for executive functioning skills. Instead, they tend to be in "fight, flight, freeze or flock" mode. Often you will find that kids have missed the rest of the conversation and really don't understand their contribution to the situation.
Yesterday at dinner, my daughters accused me of denying them social competency in elementary school because I wouldn't allow them to watch certain Disney tv shows. I felt the girls on those shows were sassy, unkind, and rude. For awhile those discussions were endless, and their feelings strong, but I am still glad I held out. Even 8 years later, with elementary school days well behind them, clearly, the girls still don't like the decision. However, they stopped mimicking the negative behavior of the girls on those shows.
I secretly look forward to the day that they will navigate these particular waters with their own children.
Wishing you warm thoughts on these cold days.
Head of School
As always, do not hesitate to reach out if we can be of any help.
