Did you know trapping fleas in a lidded jar for three days will train them to remain in the jar for the duration of their lives, even after the lid is removed? Interestingly enough, their offspring will also remain in the jar for their entire lives as well. The short amount of time in the jar with a lid conditions the fleas to believe the limits of their universe is the confines of the jar.
Similarly, sometimes our previous experiences and the thoughts we inherit from people around us limit our thinking.
The good news is that people, unlike fleas, can reset their mindset by deliberately focusing on maintaining an attitude of openness.
The Five Characteristics Of An Open Attitude
In Solution Talk, the impact of attitude cannot be overstated. Your attitude as a parent plays a crucial role in fostering open and effective communication with your teenager. By cultivating an attitude of openness, you create a conducive environment for constructive dialogue and problem-solving. Trustyy has identified key characteristics that, when developed, contribute to maintaining an open mindset during conversations with your teen.
- Curiosity: Embrace curiosity as your ally when engaging with your teenager. Genuine curiosity allows you to ask insightful questions and actively listen to their perspective. By minimizing your own talking and attentively listening to your teen, you create space for them to express themselves fully, leading to a deeper understanding of their thoughts and feelings.
- Tentativeness: Tentativeness doesn’t imply lacking confidence or uncertainty about your values and expectations. It means approaching opinions and plans with flexibility until you fully understand the situation. By maintaining a tentative stance, you remain open to different perspectives and are more willing to adapt your views based on new information, fostering a collaborative problem-solving approach.
- Respect: Recognize that your teenager is the expert on their own life. Value their input, opinions, and autonomy. Actively seek your teen’s thoughts and involve them in decision-making processes. By demonstrating respect for their individuality, you create a sense of empowerment and encourage their active participation in finding solutions.
- Humility: Acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers and be willing to admit it. Humility involves accepting your role in facilitating effective communication and improving the situation. By humbly recognizing your own limitations, you create an environment where both you and your teen can learn and grow together, fostering a collaborative and supportive relationship.
- Compassion: See your teenager as a unique individual, equally valuable and important as yourself. Recognize their weaknesses, worries, and concerns, just as you acknowledge your own. Developing compassion towards your teen allows you to connect with them on a deeper level, fostering empathy, understanding, and trust.
When you embody these characteristics, you naturally create an atmosphere of invitation where your teen is more likely to remain engaged in discussions and contribute to finding solutions.
How Do You See Your Child?
Take a moment to reflect on your current perception of your adolescent. It’s natural to feel frustrated and occasionally contemplate giving up when facing challenges with your child. However, it’s essential to examine your general attitude towards your teen and how it may impact your communication with them.
During ongoing challenges, it’s easy to view your teen as an obstacle hindering your happiness. This perspective can lead you to perceive your teen as the problem itself. Simultaneously, your teenager may have adopted the opposite view—seeing you as the problem and an obstacle to their own happiness.
When the problem is seen as residing within the other person, attempts to create positive change often become personal. Words are exchanged with the intent to punish, hoping that the other person will have a sudden realization and change. Criticisms increase, and defensiveness becomes prevalent, even in non-verbal cues like facial expressions and postures.
Unfortunately, the good qualities in each person become invisible to the other, while their shortcomings are emphasized as a means of gaining ground on the family battlefield. Regrettably, although battles may be won by each side, the relationship suffers as the real enemy—the problem—triumphs.
Consider an alternative perspective. What if the problem existed outside of your teenager? How would that change the way you perceive them? When you recognize the problem as separate from your teen, it becomes easier to view them as a person rather than a problem.
Seeing your teenager as an individual with strengths and weaknesses, dreams and challenges, worries and concerns fosters compassion. This change in perception leads you to genuinely care about their thoughts, feelings, and desires. With this genuine interest, you naturally engage in actions, questions, and conversations that invite your teen to be more open with you.
When you start seeing the problem as external to your teenager, they become someone you can work with rather than against. This shift in perspective creates greater opportunities for your relationship to overcome the challenges you face.
When we alter the way we perceive others, our behavior follows suit. Our actions, words, facial expressions, and body language communicate the respect and love we have for the other person. We cannot hide our true feelings about others, and even young children can sense how we genuinely feel about them. Their responses are often influenced by the way we make them feel.
A Case Study on the Impact of Attitude in a Parent-Teen Discussion
Let’s explore how one father’s willingness to change his attitude helped him solve a problem differently than he would have in the past.
To obtain his driver’s license, the son needed to document a certain number of driving hours. While his older brothers had simply kept logs of their driving time, the father anticipated that his youngest son might forget, lose the documentation, get frustrated, and ultimately fail. Instead of imposing his own approach, the father initiated a conversation with his son. He informed his son about the requirement for driving practice and then asked if he had any ideas on how they could keep track effectively.
The son suggested tracking the number of tanks of gas used, utilizing an existing notebook in the glove compartment for gas purchases. The father acknowledged this as a great idea, commending his son’s creativity and his ability to devise a simpler solution. They calculated the number of tanks of gas required, and that was the end of it. The son was pleasantly surprised that his father sought his opinion and was willing to deviate from his usual approach. This interaction set the stage for future positive conversations, and the son began to communicate more, feeling that his opinions were genuinely valued for the first time.
Fostering an attitude of openness and understanding in your communication with your teenager can greatly enhance your relationship and problem-solving capabilities. By cultivating curiosity, tentativeness, respect, humility, and compassion, you create an inviting atmosphere that encourages your teen to remain engaged and contribute to finding solutions. Moreover, shifting your perception from viewing your teen as the problem to seeing them as a unique individual with strengths, weaknesses, dreams, and concerns can lead to a deeper connection and more effective communication. Remember, by seeing your teen as a person rather than an obstacle, you can work together to overcome challenges and strengthen your relationship.
Activity: Cultivating an Attitude of Openness
The objective of this activity is to help parents reflect on their current attitudes towards their teenagers and explore ways to cultivate an attitude of openness in their communication.
Instructions:
- Self-Reflection: Take a few moments to reflect on your attitudes and beliefs about your teenager. Consider the following questions:
- How do you perceive your teenager in general?
- Do you view your teenager as a problem or as an individual with strengths and weaknesses?
- Are you open to considering different perspectives and adapting your views?
- How do you express respect and compassion towards your teenager?
- Do you approach conversations with curiosity and a willingness to learn from your teenager?
- Attitude Check-In: Complete the “Attitude Self Reflection” check-in in your Trustyy App. Be honest with yourself and identify any areas where your attitude might be hindering effective communication with your teenager.
- Action Plan: Select at least three specific actions you can take to cultivate an attitude of openness. For each action, include a brief description of how you will implement it in your interactions with your teenager. Record your action goals and descriptions as personal Check-in items in your Trustyy App.
- Implementation and Reflection: Over the next week, implement the actions you identified in your action plan. Pay attention to the impact they have on your communication with your teenager. After the week is over, reflect on your experience. Did you notice any positive changes in your interactions? How did your teenager respond to your attitude of openness? Record your responses in your Trustyy App.
- Share and Discuss: If you’re comfortable, share your experience and reflections with other parents or trusted individuals who can provide support and feedback. Discuss how cultivating an attitude of openness can contribute to better parent-teen relationships.
By engaging in this activity and actively working on cultivating an attitude of openness, you will be better equipped to communicate effectively with your teenager and create a nurturing and respectful environment for problem-solving and growth.
Up Next
In our next lesson, we’ll cover the second pillar of Solution Talk – Focusing on Solutions.