How to Navigate Life by Belle Liang PhD

Author:Belle Liang, PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Calling BS

First, recognize that your students have finely tuned BS radars. Adults become desensitized to BS from years of exposure, but students are still allergic to it. And that’s a good thing. The beauty of young people is earnestness and authenticity. BS is anything disingenuous, misleading, or unfair. It’s the hidden agenda. Even when BS contains elements of truth, the slightest hint of a hidden agenda makes BS feel like “a greater enemy of truth than lies.”2

People learn early in life that their parents have hidden agendas. Even when they mean well, parents get sucked into manipulating their kids out of fear and protectiveness. Helicopter parents fear that danger lurks around every corner (“I trust my kids, but not the world they live in”). Snowplow parents fear that if they don’t beat down these threats, their kids will miss out (“I will blast away my kids’ obstacles”). Performance mindset parents are thinking, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em—inject kids with winning attitudes (“I’ll teach my kids to beat the system”). Self-protective parents cover their own assets more than their kids’ for fear of being judged (“I must help my kids get into such-and-such university, to prove what a competent parent I am”).

Students have a “fear detector,” similar to their BS radar. When we’re feeling anxious about their choices, they can smell it like sharks detect blood in the water. Questions that are veiled attempts to control or manipulate come across as exactly that. The result is instant tension and defensiveness. Not open, genuine curiosity that sparks self-discovery. This is why it’s generally a good idea to calm down, meditate, pray, and hit your reset button before launching into a conversation driven by fear. Each fear-provoked conversation drives a little wedge into the relationship. That’s why we coach parents to ask themselves one question before they intervene: “How would I parent right now if I weren’t scared, worried, or anxious?” In other words, if you knew with certainty that regardless of the current situation, everything would work out fine for your student, how would you respond in this moment? What would you say or do?

When fear is not driving us, our parenting and listening improve dramatically. Suddenly the stage is set for real purpose discovery. We are present. We genuinely want to hear what our students have to say, and so we encourage them to speak freely. We listen carefully. We understand. We validate them.

Authenticity isn’t just keeping it real with students, it’s being honest with ourselves. We won’t get too far if we don’t get this part right. We have to ask ourselves: What do I really want for my student? Why? Am I imposing any of my own fears and needs on my student? We have to decouple our goals from their goals.

Even if we’ve spent our child’s first fifteen years fearfully pushing our own agendas, it’s not too late to come clean. Healthy relationships are fairly resilient and recoverable. They can bounce back quickly and often. There’s still time for a fresh start.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.