Spring! Birds chirping, flowers blooming, rain pouring, and sun shining. The change of seasons brings fresh feelings, excitement, and new perspectives. Gaining new perspectives is an incredibly important part of life, but not just for enjoying the seasons. It is essential to promoting growth, innovation, cooperation, and mutual understanding.
As much as we want to grow and develop, we want our kids to do the same. If we want them to be creative problem solvers, we must teach them to articulate their ideas and listen to new perspectives. The challenge is that young people often see an issue or situation very differently than we do. When we want to tell them to listen, take our advice, and trust our judgement- we are faced with modeling perspective taking.
How do you model perspective taking? It starts with understanding where perspectives come from. Young people get their perspectives from the same place you do; they get them from their own knowledge and experiences. So, if you want to model perspective taking try to recognize their perspective by trying to understand what they know and have experienced in that area. Be curious, show interest, and ask questions. A person will shut down pretty quickly if they feel judged or not taken seriously.
It is important to remember that learning how to hear another person’s perspective is a skill. In the book Mindwise, psychologist Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago School of Business, described perspective taking as a “sixth sense” and a “skill that allows us to infer what’s going on in another’s mind, what they think, feel, and want.” When you model that skill for your children, they will feel appreciated and they will learn how to listen and learn from others.
Find a place you both feel comfortable, ask them to share, and then sit back and listen for their feelings, thought processes, actions, and motivations. When they have had a chance to share, let it soak in. Think about what you can ask them, rather than jumping in to tell them what you think. You will find that when they are done sharing, they will be a lot more interested in hearing from you. When the time is right, I usually say something like, “would you like to hear what I have seen?” or “Can I share a different perspective.
Here are some statements or questions that I have found helpful in getting young people to share:
- Tell me about ____.
- I’m curious about ____.
- I wonder what you mean by ____.
- Help me understand ____.
- Walk me through that.
- What is your passion around that?
- Where did you learn that?
- What else would you like to know?
- Have you thought about other ways to do that?
Good relationships are not built overnight. They are built through multiple experiences of feeling loved, heard, and appreciated. There is no perfect way to do this. It takes practice and finding the ways in which you relate best with one another. You may be surprised at how much you can learn about them by just listening without judgement. They can even help you see the loopholes in your own thinking or better understand how to communicate your own perspective.
Happy Parenting,
Shelly