Welcome to Connections

Your weekly pānui for tips, tricks, and strategies to deepen your connection with your tween, teen, or adolescent.

Kia ora Reader

How’s the reflective dialogue going?

If you had a chance, and remembered …, I’d love to know how it went with the sentence starter, “It sounds like …”

And if you haven’t gotten there yet, congratulate yourself for noticing and be compassionate with yourself. Maybe the opportunity didn’t arise, or maybe it came and went and you forgot … either way it’s ok. Now would be a great time to be curious:

• How come I didn’t have a conversation with my rangatahi so that I could have tried it out?
• How come I had a conversation where it would have worked well and I didn’t use it?

Kind, consistent self enquiry is an absolute game changer when it comes to changing your parenting patterns 💞

For this week, all that’s required is a little tweak. Your sentence starter is, “It looks like …”

Here’s a sample conversation for you to follow between a parent and their rangatahi who needs a hand getting themselves organised to cook dinner.

Parent: How’s the dinner plan going? What are we having?

Rangatahi: Umm, I don’t know yet.

Parent: Oops! It looks like you could use a hand?

Rangatahi: Yeah, I’m a bit stuck deciding what to cook. Should I make pasta, or should I make burgers?

Parent: You can choose, I’ll be happy with whatever you decide.

Rangatahi: I know you don’t mind. I’d like pasta for tea but the burgers are easier to make. I know Jessie (sister) likes burgers too and I’d like to ask a favour of her later this week so I’m thinking burgers could be the way to go.

Parent: And it looks like we have a decision! What time will dinner be on the table?

You’ll notice in this dialogue that the parent used the sentence starter as a question at first while the rangatahi was dithering. Once the rangatahi realised they weren’t in trouble for not having dinner started, and they weren’t going to be reminded or nagged about cooking they were happy to air their thoughts about being stuck. Savvy parents will note there was an opportunity for sidetracking with the favour for the sister which was ignored by the parent in preference to getting dinner sorted.

This is an easy exchange to master and I encourage you to try it out with a scenario the same as this, or something equally easy. Again, note there’s just 2 uses of the reflective diaglogue. We definitely don’t need to overdo it - our rangatahi have a ‘weird’ setting on their radar for us so let’s not set that off 😂

I can’t wait to hear how you’re getting on with this.

Kia pai tō wiki ... have a great week

Melanie

PS: Not long to go now ... save your spot on the weekend course 'From Selfie to Self: Working the Spiral of Self Identity'​

Melanie Medland is a communication coach, an author, and a course creator.​

More at www.beautifulconversations.co.nz​

Click here for your complimentary strategy call.