Is Your Kid Defiant or Might They Just Be Disoriented?

March 2, 2020 by Beth Hockman

We have all been there. When our sweet, loving kiddo loses the plot and becomes a whirlwind of anger. A volcano of upset that is erupting unpleasantries all over us. A firestorm of challenging behavior, elevated energy and bold defiance. And it can happen without warning, throwing us off our game.

These are the moments that define us as a parent. As Kim John Payne says, “How we handle the storms and struggles is what ultimately define us in the eyes of our kids.”

And what if these challenging behaviors are not defiance but rather disorientation? Kim John Payne in his new book, “Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst: Practical Compassion in Parenting,” says that, “when kids are naughty, and they look right at you, it is often because they are looking to orient themselves.”

When our kids are angry and upset they are vulnerable and lost. And during this time of vulnerability and disorientation they use echolocation to get their emotional bearings. Like navigators at sea who send out a sound, a ping, and then listen for the echo to determine what their surroundings are like. Our kids do the same in an attempt to get their emotional bearings. Their “ping,” their sound, is their behavior in that moment. The anger, the frustration, the hurt. The yelling, the kicking, the hurtful words. These behaviors are sending out an echolocation to us.

When our children are lost, they don’t have many ways to orient themselves. Their primary way is through behavior. All behavior is communication and our kids are communicating with us in a really challenging way. They are attempting to get their emotional bearings through echolocation.

They achieve this by echo-locating us, trying it out on us. They send out behavior and the response they get from us will either help them get their bearings, or further disorient them.

Kids will “ping” us when they are angry and upset. When their big emotions become overwhelming and they are unable to make sense of them. They will “ping” us during times of life transitions, like moving to a new house, changing schools, parental divorce, changing friend groups, etc.

They will “ping” us when they are in pain and during developmental shifts. Obvious developmental shifts occur with the emergence of the adolescent brain and the 2’s. Developmental shifts also occur at 6.5 and 9 years of age.

If we can understand that we are being pinged – if in that moment, we can recognize that they are lost and trying to find themselves. It allows us to respond in such a way that our kids locate their emotional selves and we approach a defining parental moment with grace, compassion and love.

As our kids use echolocation via challenging behaviors, what can we do so that the response we provide helps them find their bearings rather than disorienting them more? Below are 5 things you can do as a parent when your kiddo “pings” you to support them in finding their emotional bearings.

1. Recognize They are Vulnerable:

When they ping us and we can remove ourselves from the “drama” and recognize that they are vulnerable, it allows us to approach the situation with empathy. It prevents us from engaging and inflaming the behavior. Our body language becomes soft. Our voice stays calm and neutral. Which comforts the child. When we recognize they are vulnerable we understand the situation is much worse for them. That it is hard to be them and we need to respond with calmness and love.

2. Be Inquisitive not Accusative:

Approach the behavior from a place of curiosity. Ask the questions, “I wonder why they are lost? I wonder what is going on for them?” By being inquisitive, it prevents us from taking our kids behavior personally. Which allows us to remain emotionally neutral and centered. The quickest way to being centered during our kids challenging behavior is to wonder. When we wonder, our body language naturally follows. Our eyes soften. Our shoulders round which is a non-threatening gesture. Our body language, which kids astutely read, is one of empathy and understanding.

3. Release the Need to Have the Answer

Do not burden yourself or the moment with needing an answer. The simple act of being curious is enough. If we pressure ourselves for an answer this can change the energy of the moment. We can begin to ruminate on the “why” and drift from sending back signals of stability. If an answer comes to you – fantastic. They may be obvious like too long of a play-date, blood sugar is low, sleep deprivation, friend group drama, etc. But if one doesn’t come to you it doesn’t matter because you have changed the emotional direction. This is more about the process than the answer. The shift is in the doing not the knowing.

4. Move from the Dance Floor to the Balcony:

We are on the dance floor with our kids throughout the day. When we are cooking meals, driving them to school, helping with homework, playing at the park, laughing over board games, reading book with them and tucking them in at night. These all happen on the dance floor. Spurred by curiosity we also need to find time to move to the balcony. Where we can be an observer. Where we can step away from what is right in front of us and take a big picture approach.

This is especially important when our kids are having a challenging time. When their behavior is trying, and we are exhausted. If we can move from the dance floor to the balcony it will allow us to view both our child’s inner world and ours. What is going on for us when our child is losing it? What information does the objective perspective provide us?

5. Become Aware of Your Early Warning Signs:

If these times of struggle and storms define us in the eyes of our kids, then we need to have awareness around our early warning signs of ‘losing it’. If we respond to our kid’s echolocation with anger, shame, or frustration they will stay disoriented.

Our bodies tell us ahead of our emotions and speech. Become aware of these physical responses that act as early warning signs. Where do you clench? Where do you tighten? Do your hands sweat? Does your face get hot? These are all warning signs letting us know we need to reach out for alternatives. Whether that is breathing exercises, taking 5 minutes to yourself, or tagging in a parenting partner.. If we don’t look for these early warning signs and choose an alternate way of being, we will get into the well grooved, action-reaction pattern with our kids, which is not what we want.

So, the next time your sweet, beautiful kiddo embarks on challenging behavior

Visualize a ship at sea lost and disoriented. Unsure of the terrain around them. Visualize the ship sending out a sound, waiting to hear the echo. Allowing them to get their bearings to stay safe and confident. This ship is your kid. Embrace their echolocation, utilize the 5 steps above and send back to your kid a sound of empathy, understanding and strong boundaries.

And remember this is how your kids grow. Getting lost, being found, getting lost, being found. Echolocation is inevitable, it is our kids doing the work of growing up.

Let me know how it goes.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out Kim John Payne’s latest book at this link ,

Got Grit? 7 Ways to Develop Grit in your Kids

August 22, 2019 by Beth Hockman

Recently I was asked to speak at Mindful Mornings Asheville on the topic of grit. As I prepared for the talk and reflected on my own personal journey with grit and the grit I was intentionally building in my girls, I realized that my most precious gifts in life were directly due to GRIT!

The two biggest being: my girls and that fact that I was alive. Not to go into too many details but I was symptomatic at 19, diagnosed at 27 with a severe medical condition and told I would never be able to have kids and that I would be dead by the time I was 50. Challenge accepted!

This diagnoses and prediction came at the peak of my Outward Bound instructing years which was a crucible for grit. Grit was the value we lived as instructors and what we facilitated in our students. After all, Outward Bound’s motto and guiding light is, “To serve, to strive, and not to yield”.

Grit is what told me to call bull on the doctor’s prediction of not having kids and to go after the dream of motherhood with everything I had, however that would look. And to explore alternative approaches to address my medical condition so that turning 50 would be a reality, which I did in September.

Grit is what got me through those two days in ICU when the birth of my twin girls went terribly wrong and I ended up with an emergency hysterectomy and a 50/50 chance I would live.

Grit is what fuels my research, my hope with each new protocol I embark on, as I dance with chronic illness.

And Grit is what my sweet, bright girls access each day through their dyslexia, dyscalcula and processing speed deficits.

Grit is a gift! A gift of passion and perseverance. A gift of achieving the impossible. A gift of motherhood of living and of learning!! A gift that I want to make sure my girls are indebted with.

Angela Duckworth, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has been studying grit since 2005 and has found that grit, not intelligence or academic achievement, is the most reliable predictor of success.

She defines grit as the passion and perseverance for long term goals. She says one way to think about grit is to consider what grit isn’t. Grit isn’t talent. Grit isn’t luck. Grit isn’t how intensely, for the moment, you want something.

Instead, grit is about having a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything you do.

And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. It’s about moving in a direction with consistency and endurance, like having a clear inner compass that guides all your decision and actions.

We can’t just give grit to our children. But we can develop it in them. As Duckworth says, “Kids are not able to just spontaneously grow up to be gritty people without being supported in that.”

So how do we do that as parents? If we know that grit is the one single greatest predictor of success for our kids, how do we give them this gift? Based on the work of Angela Duckworth, I lay out 7 actionable items we can do as parents to support the development of grit in our kids.

1. Let Them Find a Passion

One of the characteristics of “gritty” people is that they are, “Especially motivated to seek happiness through focused engagement and a sense of meaning or purpose.”

Letting our kiddos find their own passion is necessary for their development of grit. In a story for NPR Duckworth stated, “I don’t think people can become truly gritty and be great at things they don’t love, so when we try to develop grit in kids, we also need to find and help them cultivate their passions.”

The challenge here as parents is to allow our kids the space and exploration to find their passion, not what we hope is their passion. And when our kids find their passion, support it in anyway possible.

It is through this pursuing of their passion that they will learn that hard work and effort pay off. And because they love what they are doing, they will be more willing to engage in the hard work and effort.

I recently saw this in my daughter. Due to her learning differences she does not always enjoy school work. Especially anything to do with reading. Understandably so as a 9 year with severe dyslexia.

When we work on her sight words, chapter books, etc it would be easy to assume she lacks effort. But when you see her with her art, well the hard work and effort is absolutely breathtaking. She has found her passion and that is art.

One raining Sunday this spring she embarked on her entry for Doodle for Google. And worked 6 hours straight, humming along as she created her masterpiece. I had to force her to take breaks to eat and drink. She was wrapped up in her passion and the hard work flowed effortlessly.

2. Model a Growth Mindset

In her 2013 TED talk, Duckworth said that the best way to increase grit in children is to teach what Carol Dweck, Stanford professor and author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, calls a “growth mindset”.

Dweck has found that people with a “growth mindset” are more resilient and tend to push through struggle because they believe that hard work is part of the process and they do not believe failure is a permanent condition.”

One way for us, as parents, to encourage a growth mindset in our kids is to praise effort over ability. By doing this we create a belief that hard work and effort get them to their goals rather that solely relying on their innate attributes.

So take the example of my daughter and her Doodle for Google project. During those 6 hours I was intentional in praising her effort. For example, I would say, “Wow, look how hard you are working, I love seeing the effort and focus you are putting into this project”.

3. Offer Challenges/Create Prior Experiences

Find experiences and challenges that place your kids in the stretch zone. When your kids engage in these experiences it requires them to be uncomfortable, to learn new skills, to be courageous, to be vulnerable.

These prior experiences build a reference point for your kids to tap into when we need to dig deep and find the perseverance and stamina to make it through something hard. They build muscle memory, both physical and emotional, of just how capable they are.

Seek out these experiences for your kids. Learning to overcome adversity is best achieved with practice and along the way they will learn that there is more in them that they thought.

One way our family provides these experiences for our girls is through the wilderness. We have found the wilderness to be an amazing place to grow gritty kids. For this very reason of providing stretch zone moments.

Last summer my husband and girls were on a 5 day canoe expedition on the South Fork of the New River. And it poured with rain. The kind of rain where a raincoat doesn’t even make a difference. Where you can barely see the person in front of you because it is raining so hard. And they did it. They paddled, camped, cooked, etc all in this unforgiving rain (see picture).

A few weeks after the trip we were walking as a family. It was getting dark and we suggested to the girls, who were choosing a more adventurous path, that they should stay with us as it was easier to see in the waning light. To which our one daughter looked at us in disbelief and said, “We survived camping in 5 days of pouring rain, I think we can handle this path.”

And she was right! They could handle that path and they did. The stretch zone living of that camping trip had expanded her capacity for challenge and for grit.

4. Teach them to Fail

In our overly photo-shopped world of projected perfections, failure is not easily embraced. Yet, failing is where the magic is. It is where we learn our greatest life lessons. Where we learn that we have what it takes to figure it out. To pick ourselves up and try again. Failure is the canvas of grit.

Teach your kids to fail, to celebrate failure and to see it for the great teacher it is. Talk about your own failures. Talk about setbacks as they arise and help them develop alternative plans.

Share with them the stories of others who have failed before eventually reaching their goal. And talk about what they think kept those people going. Like Edison’s 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. What would have happened if he had given up after only 10 attempts? Normalize failure for your kids.

5. A Culture of Grit

Find a community for your kids where there is a culture of grit and have them join. When your kids become part of this gritty culture, they will conform to the group and adopt their gritty habits.

When it’s socially expected to wake up at 5 a.m. to practice, it becomes what they do. Eventually, the values of the culture we belong to become part of our identity. When values like grit become part of our identity, decisions on those values become habit and automatic.

6. Gratitude

Gritty people practice gratitude. They see the good in life which allows them to see possibilities. When we meet our brain’s negativity bias with the gratitude in our heart we become hopeful, abundant and positive.

Studies have found a link between grit and optimism. It is hard to set goals and persevere without a positive sense of the future. Gratitude feeds optimism.

7. Be a Model of Grittiness

The best way for our kids to learn grit is to see grit. Model resilience for your children and show them that failing is nothing to be afraid of. Show your kids that you take on risks that are sometimes scary.

We like to think our kids learn best from what we tell them, but we all know they learn best from what we show them. And if we show them our grittiness they will learn to be gritty themselves.

They see it, even when we think they don’t. Go out there and be gritty. You got this and your kids will to.

This spring break we went camping and rock climbing as a family. Due to my chronic illness I haven’t felt like rock climbing, a sport I love. Through sheer grit I am getting better and clawing my way out of chronic illness.

So on this particular trip I felt like I had a few climbs in me. And I did it. I got on the rock. It wasn’t pretty but I did it. And it felt amazing!! But the most amazing part was at the end of the trip as I was debriefing with the girls. We always do a family debrief of roses, thorns and buds (what did you love, what did you not like, what are you looking forward to). My one daughter without hesitation and with great excitement enthusiastically said, “My rose of the trip was seeing Mom climb”.

They see us. So for them, if not for you, be gritty!!

Parenting with Pre-Minders: Welcome to Nirvana

January 10, 2017 by Beth Hockman

Ah, yes reminders. Those lovely statements we seem to say over and over to our kids. All the while thinking that if we remind them just one more time we will receive our desired outcome. We get tired of using them and our kids get tired of hearing them. We get so tired of using reminders that we will often say things like, “Sweet girl, if I have to remind you one more time to unpack your school bag I am going to explode.” Sound familiar?

Here’s the thing about reminders. They are, in their purest form, demands. When our kids hear a demand they sense an implied threat and will often fight against this implied threat. It may present itself as tuning us out, refusing to do requested reminder or worse, self-sabotage.

Another thing happens with reminders. Our kiddos will come to require the number of reminders we give them. We actually condition our kids by using reminders. So going back to the school bag example – if I remind my daughter 12 times to unpack her school bag I have just now conditioned her to receive 12 reminders before she will unpack her school bag.

When our twins were little peanuts my husband and I decided we would be 3 reminder parents. We agreed that after the 3rd reminder we would take action and remind no more. They were little and we figured 3 reminders would be fair. As little ones are, our girls were highly distractible so we felt comfortable with 3 reminders. It was enough to give them some direction but not enough where we did all the thinking. We believed that our kids should go to bed tired from doing all of their thinking not us. And reminders put the burden of thinking on us instead of them.

So when we were getting ready to go the park we would remind our sweet girls 3 times to get their shoes on and after the 3rd reminder we would head out the door and start the car. Sometimes they would follow with shoes in hand and sometimes they would be barefoot. It didn’t matter to us as they were the ones who were going to have to figure it out. Now at age 5 all we have to say is let’s go to the park. And they know what needs to happen because they have been doing the bulk of the thinking for the past two years.

The 3 reminder limit was working but I wondered if there was something better than reminders. Because let’s face it as a parent we are hard-wired to give reminders. And as the girls got older I found myself being pulled to “reminders”. Especially with one of our girls. She lives so much in the moment and is highly distracted by bright shining objects, puffy clouds and puppy dogs if you know what I mean.

So that is when I came up with the pre-minder. It has been a game changer for us. The pre-minder is almost always in the form of questions and it happens before, not during the “situation,” thus the “pre” in pre-minder. Let’s look at an example. We have pulled in the driveway from school. Before the girls get out of the car we have the following conversation:

Me: “Hey sweet girls, what needs to happen the minute we get inside?”
Girls: “We need to unpack our school bags.”
Me: “Beautiful! What does that look like?”
Girls: “We put our Baggie Books in our cubby. Hang up our coat and make sure our lunch box is in the sink.”
Me: “Love it! Anything else?”
Girls: “Nope except give Connor (our dog) a cuddle.”
Me: “Sounds awesome. What will happen if this does not occur the minute we get inside?”
Girls: “We won’t get our after school snack until it is all done.”
Me: “Love it. Let’s do it to it!”

As we enter the house post school pick up, a time that historically was rich in reminders, the girls go about what needs to be done with not a word from me. By using pre-minders the girls do the thinking and own the process. When kids own the process they are more likely to follow through.

Pre-minders are a way to set them up for success. It keeps you from nagging, which reminders quickly turn into, and it supports a respectful parent child dynamic.

The long-term effects are amazing as well. By coaching your kids through what needs to happen via questions they begin to develop the executive function part of brain. This is where logic, reason, consequential thinking and cause and effect thinking reside. A part of the brain that I want to be strong in my girls.

Next time you find yourself wanting to give a reminder rather ask yourself how can I present this as a pre-minder rather than exhaust both parties with reminders.

Let’s look at another example. You all are having lunch and have made plans to go to the pool after lunch is done. This is where you want to do a pre-minder. Let’s take a look.

Me: “I love the idea of going to the pool after lunch – yea! What do we need to do before we can leave for the pool?”
Girls: “Clear our dishes and load them in the dishwasher.”
Me: “Yes, that sounds great. What else needs to happen? Like what do we need to do in order to be prepared for the pool?”
Girls: “Get our suits on and our suntan lotion.”
Me: “Yep, and what do we need while we are at the pool?”
Girls: “We need to pack our sun hats, goggles, water bottle and snacks.”
Me: “That sounds great. How much time do you think you will need to make this happen?”
Girls: “I bet we can do it in 5 minutes!!”
Me: “Great. Just let me know when you are ready and we can head out for an afternoon of fun in the sun.”

You will notice that you are coaching them through the process with questions. And part of that coaching is asking the questions of, “What does it look like?”, “How much time do you need?” and/or “What happens if it is not completed?” By doing that you allow them to set their own boundaries and expectations which means less push back because they have shared control. By having them articulate, “What that looks like,” there won’t be any discrepancies in expectation which will help you stay away from reminders.

Play around with pre-minders and let me know how it goes. You will love the liberation that comes from not having to live in the cycle of reminders.

Are You Teaching Your Kids to Listen to Peer Pressure?

November 14, 2014 by Beth Hockman

As parents we fear the day when the voice of our kid’s peers trumps our parental voice. And it isn’t just the voice of peers. It is also the voices of social media and pop culture that we fear. To be honest the latter two scare me more.

My girls are 4, twin girls, and currently I am able to control the outside influence in their world. Yes, they listen to my parental voice and I do not take this for granted. Like many 4 year old girls they play princess and mermaids – the empowered kind that rescue themselves not the Disney ones that wait to be rescued by a man or give up their identity to be with a man. I have exerted my parental voice and shared my values with them regarding the princess/mermaid story lines I favor. I get to pick what movies they can watch and for now that works, but having spent my professional life as an educator, I know that won’t last.

At some point their adolescent brain will turn off my parental voice. I completely understand that this is a developmental milestone my girls will need to go through as they seek social support groups outside of the home. This is an evolutionary step that other mammals go through as well. Dr. Siegel writes in his book, “Brainstorm”, “Associating with our peers during this time is vital for our survival. There is safety in numbers as we, “leave the nest,” and help one another brave this new world.”

I also know that peer pressure in its simplest form is merely the act of listening to an external voice. That’s right – if we wash away all the psycho-educational terms, we get to the core of peer pressure – listening to an external voice. Now think of this as it relates to parenting. If I tell my girls what to do all the time I am in essence teaching them to listen to an external voice – my voice. I may think this is okay because my parental voice has their best interests at heart, but that does not matter as it is still an external voice.

For this article I am mainly referring to negative peer pressure. I acknowledge the existence and power of positive peer pressure. I mean after all, I work out much harder at my Cross fit class then I do at the Y on my own for example.

When I make all their decisions, solve their problems and prevent them from making mistakes I am teaching them to listen to an external voice. It may be a sensible external voice rooted in love and life experience, but none the less it is a voice that is not theirs.

What we need to do as parents is guide our children in developing a strong internal voice. This is the most effective defense to peer pressure. You see, when our child turns off parental voice, and they all do, if we have supported the development of a strong internal voice in them, then that is what they listen to. Not the external voices of social media, pop culture and peer groups, but their own internal voice that we have helped shape.

So, yes I do exert my parental voice like when I only allow movies that represent empowered girls, but I also give them a zillion opportunities during the day to listen to their own voice. To begin to build their internal voice that will allow them to blossom into the amazing women I know they can become.

5 Easy Steps to Help your Child Build a Strong Internal Voice?

1.) Give them lots of choices throughout the day. Small choices like “Do you want to brush your teeth at the kitchen sink or your sink?”, “What would be best for you to clean your room – on Saturday or Sunday?”, “Will you be going to school with your clothes on or in a paper bag?” Choices make them think, it gives them a share in the power dynamic of human relations and it helps them build the 10 second decision making muscle.

2.) Allow your children to make mistakes especially when the consequences are low. Nothing builds a strong internal voice like learning from your mistakes, understanding cause and effect thinking, and allowing the consequences to do the teaching.

3.) Complement effort rather than outcome. Focus on how hard they worked on the assignment not just the letter grade they got on it. By doing this you build a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset in your child. Your child will develop an internal voice that values hard work, tenacity, facing challenges head on and a desire to learn.

4.) Allow your child to solve their problems. Be there in a loving and supportive way but be prepared to say, “What do you think you are going to do about it?”, “How are you going to solve this?”, or “Feel free to solve this any way that does not make a problem for you or anyone else?”

5.) Involve them in the process of designing their own consequences. Research by Charlotte Geary at the University of Virginia found that 16-year-olds whose mothers undermined their autonomy during conflict resolution were high in susceptibility to peer influence. According to the research, teens who participated in joint decision-making (talking things through with their parents) were less susceptible to peer pressure at 18.

So remember, the next time you want to tell your child exactly what to do, ask yourself, “How can I approach this situation in a way that will get them thinking and building their internal voice?”

Questions are the New Answers

March 14, 2014 by Beth Hockman

Questions are the New Answers

It was only when I became a parent did I truly realize the value of questions. I believe questions are one of the greatest and underutilized parenting tools we have. Questions are the new answers. When you ask more questions and give fewer answers you empower both you and your child.

As an Outward Bound instructor questions were the corner stone of my field work. We used questions so much as Outward Bound instructors that the end of course skits would often involve a parody of our question asking ability. Responding with questions became second nature to me. It was my natural response to answer a question with a question. A common example would be on the trail during a rest break with kids exhaustedly sprawled on their backpacks. A student would approach with the map and compass and desperately ask, “Where do you think we are?” To which I would reply, “Where do you think we are?” She would then say, “I think we are here.” And I would reply, “O.k. and why do you think that?” She would respond with her reasoning and I would watch as her confidence grew and her navigational skills flourished. Would this have happened if I had simply given her the answer?

Eventually with my crews it would get to a point that when they were trying to figure something out whether it was a bear-hang, navigation, setting up their tarps, etc one would say, “Lets just ask Beth.” To which the others would replay, “No, she will just answer with a question. We can figure this out.” And I would sit back and watch as this once “answer” obsessed group of kids become independent, critical thinkers. It was a joyous sight!

Here are 5 ways to use questions in your parenting:

1. More Questions Fewer Battles

A sure fire way to get in a power struggle with your child is to tell them what to do. It may be on an unconscious level, but when you tell your child what to do they sense an implied threat. A loss of power in their relationship dynamic with you! They will sabotage to reclaim this loss of power.

Rather than tell your child what to do redirect with a question. For example instead of saying, “Stop that!” rather ask, “Are you sure this is the right place for that behavior?” Another example would be when your child comes home and dumps their coat at the front door. Instead of saying, “Pick up your coat now!” redirect with “Are you sure you want to leave your coat there?” Questions like these move your child into the thinking state rather than fighting state.

2. Empower Them to Own and Solve their Problems

It is human nature to want to hand off our problems to other people. This happens with adults as well not just kids. If we establish a pattern that every time our child comes to us with a problem we solve/answer it for them they will no longer worry about the problems in their life. Why bother if mom is going to take care of it.

They will also miss out on the learning opportunity of solving their own problems. True self confidence comes from figuring things out for your self not a gold star. Plus they will be more likely not to cause problems if they have to do the work of solving them. So the next time your child approaches you with a problem lock in the empathy and then ask, “What do you think you are going to do about it?” or “Hmm… that does sound tricky, how do you plan on solving it?” By asking your child how they will solve the problem you are sending a power message to them that you believe in their abilities, they are smart, and that they can come up with the answer. You have empowered them to do the thinking.

3. Distraction

The human brain desires closure. It wants to complete the loop. It has a hard time ignoring questions. The brain will put its energy into finding answers to questions which means less energy for resistance.

This has been a parenting life saver for me. I have twin 3 year olds and when they are in the car they love to engage with each other which can be draining for me. When they do this I simply ask them questions like, “Do you think Connor, our dog, would like to go swimming with us at the Y?” or “What would you like for lunch?” or “Do you think the bears are waking up or are they still sleeping?” Any random question I can think of and you would not believe how well it works. They forget what they were engaging in and attempt to answer the question. It moves them from their place of resistance, engagement, whininess, etc. to calm, inquisitive, pliable little people.

4. Prevent you From Lecturing

Often when we become a parent a switch gets turned on in us that I call the “lecture switch”. Although we hated lectures as kids we find ourselves giving them to our kids. And as you have learned they don’t work. The moment we begin a lecture our kids tune us out. They blame us for the consequence rather than themselves and it prevents us from building positive relationships with them.

Rather than lecture use questions. Questions will prevent you from delivering lectures and it will move your child into the thinking state. An example of this would be your child receives a brand new bike for his birthday. He is super excited to ride it to school and you worry that it will get stolen. Normally you would begin to lecture about responsibility, making sure your bike is not stolen, etc. Instead begin with questions. “That does sound awesome to ride your new bike to school. What are your plans for making sure it doesn’t get stolen? Do you think thick rope will prevent kids from stealing it? What is something you might want to use rather than think rope? Where at school do you think is the best place to lock up the bike? I always struggle to remember my combination for my lock. How are you going to remember your combination?”

5. Questions Lead to Discovery

Questions lead to discovery and discovery leads to motivated learners. When my girls ask me how something works or why the dog does something I will lead them on a road of discovery by asking questions. Rather than giving them the answers I ask strategic questions to allow them the freedom and confidence to discover the answers for themselves. This increases their experimentation and inquisitiveness. All little people are motivated learners the key as parents and educators is to keep them motivated and the best way to do this is through questions. By asking questions rather than giving answers you create a culture of experimentation and discovery.

Highly creative achievers don’t begin with a brilliant idea. They discover them. They ask “what if” and “why not”. Questions are the new answers.

How do you use questions to empower your parenting? Please share your experiences by clicking the “Leave a comment” link at the top of this post, I’d love to hear from you.