by I’ve made a couple of posts today that made me think about comparing ourselves to others and judging others’ abilities.
As parents, we occasionally look at how other parents “do it”.
The problem comes when 1) we focus only on the “good stuff” and 2) we don’t consider what lurks beneath
A few years back, I was coaching our local high school hockey team when “there arose such a clatter” in the dressing room between players before the game.
After the mélé, I hauled both players both aside outside of the room individually.
I determined that they were both right and both wrong.
Being young and inexperienced their method of resolving the issue lacked, professionalism, shall we say.
I mean they were guys so, well, guys resolve things in one way generally, right?
I was able to help them see a perspective they hadn’t considered – a personalized perspective for each of them.
The underlying message to both was: Everybody has a story.
Generally, there are reasons behind actions that we don’t see or know…and definitely don’t consider.
Typically, we react, then we think.
I’m guilty of this sometimes even now.
We can guess motivators behind an action and then react to that, but there are always those surprising reasons that we never considered.
Before you react to your kids bad behaviour – take a second to stop and think. There may be something behind the scenes that you don’t know about, which causes the behavior.
If it seems out of place, ask them “What’s up?”
Once you understand the motivator, it is easier to deal effectively with the behavior.
