Want Less Conflict with Your Kids?
4 Empathy Experiments to Try
All parents and children experience conflict, and get stuck in frustrating patterns. Here are 4 experiments to try to tap into empathy and creative problem solving with your kids.
by Joshua Freedman
1. Take a long-term perspective
Imagine, 20 years from now, your child is talking with friends about their parents. Based on your behavior in the last two weeks: What might your child say about you?
“He got angry a lot.”
“She was too busy for me.”
“He loved being my Daddy.”
“She was my greatest ally.”
Is that what you want? What’s your ideal answer?
I remember leaving for a trip when my kids were around four and six years old. There was a “typical argument” in the morning before I left, and I ended up shouting at them. Later, with the clarity that comes when you’re 32,000 feet in the air, I thought: “This isn’t the Daddy I want to be. If this plane crashes, I don’t want them to remember me as someone who shouted.”
Next time you’re in a conflict with your kids, try to take a step back. What would my child say in that conversation about me-as-a-parent in 20 years?
2. Look beneath the surface
If we only focus on the surface level behaviors, we’re missing valuable data. Both for yourself and your child, ask: What’s going on beneath the visible behaviors? What’s driving those behaviors? When we tap into this curiosity, it softens our staked out resistance and opens us up to empathy and creative problem solving. Here’s a great description of that practice over a typical parent-child argument, homework:
3. Equalize everyone’s feelings
One of the most powerful tools that helped me reduce my frustration was, and still is, a version of empathy. When I’m agitated about my child, I remind myself: My kid is probably agitated about me. When I’m enraged with one of them (and they seem to take turns pushing those buttons), I remind myself: S/he is probably enraged with me. When I feel sad or disconnected, I consider: Maybe my child is feeling much the same.
4. Depersonalize it
Another tool is somewhat the opposite.
I ask myself:
Is this really about me?
Often when they’re having big feelings, my impulse is to take it personally.
He’s defying me.
She’s shutting me down.
However, with a bit of empathy, I can reflect: What if it has nothing to do with me? What if they’re expressing this feeling here, in my direction, because it’s safe to do so… but it’s not really about me?
I find this a curious paradox – empathy requires a recognition of reciprocity, on the one hand, and, on the other, separation. Interdependence and independence, both at the same time. That’s a powerful way to view ourselves as parents.
This article was first published on 6seconds.org on December 7, 2015
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This article provides great tips on how to continue practicing empathy as well as how to increase it. As a coach, these four reminders help me to continue to put things into perspective and to check my patterns and have better responses even in the midst of a conflict (or perceived conflict). People are people. When encountering people at different emotional stages or in different stages in life, asking myself the powerful questions and taking a step back to evaluate the situation holistically really helps to balance my own emotional state. Maintaining that awareness, along with continued development of my self awareness brings balance as I continue my EQ journey and grow to be a more effective coach.
This article provides great tips o how to not only practice empathy, but to increase it as well. As a coach, these four reminders help me to continue to put things into perspective and to check my patterns and have better responses even in the midst of a conflict (or perceived conflict). People are people. When encountering people at different emotional stages or in different stages in life, asking myself the powerful questions and taking a step back to evaluate the situation holistically really helps to balance my own emotional state. Maintaining that awareness, along with continued development of my self awareness brings balance as I continue my EQ journey and grow to be a more effective coach.
I too used to experience the angst caused by homework battles. I had difficulty understanding how or why my well-intentioned attempts to guide and assist my child with homework could result in anger, helplessness and dysfunction. I began noticing what my triggers to his inefficiency were (what was I doing/how was I reacting to his inability to complete the work efficiently and how was I responding to his “way of approaching homework”).
I had to pull back, ask myself why I felt my way was the right way and begin to set new boundaries for myself to keep from imposing my study habits and approach to homework on him. I had to work very hard to let him develop his own methods and habits. Allowing him to experiment with different methods and learn from the different consequences that resulted from his style.
I had to realize and understand that his homework was HIS and not mine. Things improved little by little. He has grown immensely through this process, as have I; and, he has developed self-sufficient and successful study habits.
My son is almost 5 and I recognize the same thoughts and feelings when we have disagreements about eating and going to bed. My own work on my EQ has made me realise I often react based on a pattern that is very often not relevant. Currently I ask myself : what kind of parent do I want to be ? My new response has been to explain the options to my son, talk through some consequences and them give him some space to respond. If I need space to respond instead of react should I not give my son the same space. The great thing is that my son generally makes great decisions on his own. My trust in him has grown so much.
HI Josh… A great article, i am really low on empathy and your video really helped me put things in perceptive, thanks.
Homework is a source of great stress for my children, and this article is elegant in its simplicity. The insights here bring into alignment all parties whose best interests are the child but are often somehow too often pitched at odds. I can’t wait to practice this with my own children – tonight!