In last week’s newsletter, we gave you some strategies for how to talk TO your kids about what’s going on. Kids can really benefit from knowing what to expect. They stay calmer longer when they know the schedule and things that are happening to and around them. (If you missed that one, check it out HERE)

And, if you’re using the forecasting method to frontload expectations and to tell about the plan, that usually goes quite well.

But, as with any strategy, we tend to overuse “Explaining” in our parenting toolbox. 

We use “explaining” to Impart Wisdom; to Drop Important Knowledge That Kids Need to Know. 

And when we get into that mode, we think that our kids’ job is to Listen, and our job is to Teach. 

It comes from a good place (kinda). We want to explain lots of stuff to our kids in the hopes that it will keep them safe, healthy, and away from negative experiences (like we had). 

But as anyone who has overused this strategy knows (guilty!), it can backfire into confrontation, tug of war and “that’s not how it is for me”’s.

This week I want to suggest another strategy: Talking near them.

There’s a family in our Raising Orchid Kids group whose child HATES to be directly recognized for anything they do. Her parents have tried many different approaches: big hugs, little thumbs ups, winks, nudges, notes and lots of other things. But every time they did it, she would lash out. So, they tried another strategy: Talking near her (within earshot) but not to her. This allowed Daughter to maintain plausible deniability while allowing her parents to get their message across.

This could look like you being in the kitchen with your parenting partner and saying something like, “M looked so proud of herself when she got that award. It lit me up inside to see it.”

Or, “I heard from Simon’s teacher that he had a really great answer to a question today.”

Or, “I was really impressed when we went to the store and Addi didn’t scream for candy today.”

It’s a way of highlighting Good Deeds without putting anyone on the spot. It’s a way of praising without praising. It’s a way of leveraging the “Presume Competence” idea for good.

You just talk near them.

You can also try this strategy if you’re trying to teach a skill. 

Have the demonstrative conversation that you think you’d like to have with your child with an adult instead. Let them “overhear” you.

• Work through a difficult emotion.

• Talk through a moment at work that caught you off guard, or that delighted you.

• Talk aloud about how you were feeling or what you were thinking when X happened.

Talking near them is a way of modeling (showing) for our kids what we want them to know without putting them on the spot. And for some kids, that is what they can handle right now. That’s their “just right challenge”. 

If the goal is to have our kids learn the lessons that we think are important, then I encourage you to get creative about how those lessons get imparted. If you’ve got an Orchid Kid, chances are that they’re learning style is not so compatible with an “I Speak and You Listen and Learn” approach. 

So what’s more important? 

You being powerful? Or them learning?

You being ‘right’? Or you and your child being in relationship?

If talking directly to your child about sticky emotional subjects (and for some kids praise is sticky!), will you try just talking near them? 

As always, I’d love to hear back about what you noticed and how it went!

xo G