Sometimes negative feedback is valid. However it is not always what you say but how you say it.

When is negative feedback valid?

Sometimes a child needs to hear the truth. Would you be doing your child any favors if he/she made it all the way to high school graduation never learning an important skill they needed because everyone was afraid to hurt their feelings?  Or worse because they were dismissed based on an invalid judgment? Being told you are not doing something right does not always feel good but taking the criticism and asking yourself  ‘is the core of this valid?’  is a necessary skill to master if you are going to learn from your mistakes.

You can teach your child to accept and consider the valid part of the criticism without having to take in the opinion part of it (the sarcastic  comments, “how many times do I have to tell you” the exaggerated body language and gestures some people use etc).

Let’s face it, some people are really harsh. Your child may need some constructive criticism when learning a new task, but it is not always given in a good way. Depending on how the person is feeling that day (or their personality in general) there can be negative body language or sarcasm involved even if they do not come right out and say that your child is stupid (or some other invalid label).

I will never forget the day in sophomore English class when my teacher said to me ” how did YOU know that?” after I proudly raised my hand answering a question correctly about a Shakespeare lesson that we had just read. I was humiliated so instead of clarifying how I knew the answer I just sank in my chair. I ended up not participating in class after that day.

I was a ‘problem child’ in high school, and I was/ am dyslexic (this was before spell-check or computers) so the teacher probably assumed I cheated to get the answer. To be honest this bothered me for YEARS (because I really did like Shakespeare!), if someone would have given me some tools to use to ask the right questions, I may not have carried around the label of ‘stupid’ for so long. He could have meant anything, but I presumed instead of clarifying.

On the flip side of that, I wish someone would have noticed the dyslexia early so I could have taken steps to improve both my writing and math skills. It was only years later, in college when a math professor picked up on it. I failed at my first attempt at college. Determined, I bought a ‘math magic’ and spelling program to study at home on my own. When I learned I was dyslexic and was able to tell my professors this, they were less likely to just dismiss my work- they gave me constructive feedback and tools.  My second attempt at College was a success and I graduated with honors.

Back to the sophomore English teacher, how different would it have been if I would have asked the teacher what he meant by that statement? Who knows, I could have been wrong and it would have saved me years of grief.  If he talked about how horrible my spelling was for example, perhaps we could work toward getting some extra help with that (instead of expecting me to just take a hint- or writing me off as stupid).

Tools:

Explain to your child that someone else’s negative opinion about them is not important (it is usually more about the other person then the child anyway). What is important is looking past that and asking yourself if the criticism is valid.

Ask your child “is that how you feel about yourself?”. Do some empathetic listening to get to the bottom of how your child really feels.

Give the child some ‘come backs’  they can use such as:

• “thank you for your opinion”
• “Thank you for the negative feedback” – Quote Rita Davenport
• “Thank you, you may be right”

From I Need Your Love – Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

…or simply ignore the invalid criticism and take in the valid part and learn from it, for example:

• ” Thank you, I will attempt to improve ____”

Teach your child to shrug off the emotional perspectives of others and focus on the facts.

There will still be times when your child’s feelings are hurt (especially if the criticism comes from a close friend or relative) but over time the child will learn that all the emotional stuff attached when people are giving criticism is indeed more about the other person.

Can you think of other constructive ‘come backs’ to shrug of subtle put downs without getting defensive? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Related articles

• How to Manage Criticism Effectively (sixrevisions.com)
• Getting further with feedback (leadershipfreak.wordpress.com)

Hello everyone! This is a big subject so look for a series of blog posts coming in the next few weeks on authenticity and empowerment, and how this can help you connect with others, become a positive role model, and live your true purpose.

Personal Awareness

You may have heard it 100 times before “the answer is within”, easy right? Now that you know the secret you should have no problem living your life authentically and being empowered right? Well, for most of us it is not that easy.

The best way I can describe acting from a place of self awareness is to mention it’s opposite- reactionary. Have you ever had the feeling that you were not yourself, that you reacted to something and regretted it? Do you find yourself having to lecture and explain yourself instead of just speaking your truth without blame or judgment in a confident and concise way?

Why is it that when we are seeking to be empowered and authentic, the skills that we are attempting to learn and use abandon us when we need them the most?

How many times have you left a situation that you know you did not follow your instincts- “I should have said this” or “I shouldn’t have agreed to do  ____” fill in the blank…

Why does this happen? The main reason is lack of self awareness at the time of the event. Some people refer to this as a ‘dear in the headlights’  moment or a reactionary moment. Instead of coming from a confident ‘knowing’ place we are simply re-playing old destructive patterns that do not work for us or bring us closer to being authentic. We lack the tools to respond because we are not in touch with our intentions, emotions, and/or our core beliefs and interpretations.

We all begin this life expressing our needs without a problem. Babies do not explain themselves, if they need something they let us know in no uncertain terms- they cry when they need to be fed or changed, and they don’t ask permission or make apologies.

The other day my four year old daughter Ella made me so proud I cried. To give a little background, up until a few months ago Ella was communicating mainly by sign language. She just began answering yes and no questions, as well as speaking in conversational sentences a few months ago.

Someone (I won’t mention names due to privacy reasons) said  to her “well you don’t have a choice” Ella’s reply was “yes, I do have a choice”. WOW! She did not need me to dive in and rescue her, that was the best response I have ever heard! Ella has not been conditioned to please others yet, she is coming from a place of 100% integrity (oh to be able to start out fresh at four years old!).

At some point from when we are a baby to when we are adults we learn to manipulate, distort, deny, repress, and lie to others and ourselves about our true selves and our true feelings, and slowly we loose our true selves in the process. We are conditioned to do this by society, our family, and others. We follow along to simply survive.

By the time it is our turn to be parents we can completely forget who we truly are, we have spent so much time pleasing and conforming in order to survive or fit in we lost our true selves somewhere along the way.

Most of us know what we don’t want, but how many of us, without a doubt, know what we DO truly want? If we begin to get a feeling for what we want (or the direction we want to go to follow our true purpose), our first reaction may be to ask our peers what they think, or do research.

Here is the problem, even though you may find no shortage of ‘good’ or ‘right’ advice from others (this includes books, the net, and seminars)- they really can’t truly know what is best for you! Only you know your true purpose and the only way your are going to find it is by true self awareness. Sure you can use tools to help you get there, but in the end it is up to you to follow your inner voice.

Thales of Milet, a philosopher in the sixth century B.C was asked ” What is the most difficult of all things?” he replied “To know yourself” when asked “What is the easiest in life?” his response was “Giving others good advice.”

Back to choice: The fact is we do have a choice weather or not we act from a place of self awareness or not. Some of the things that get in the way of this are:

1. Societies values: For the most part our society is about spending and consuming- this does not encourage self awareness.

2. Time: It seems that here in the USA many of us fill our schedule and don’t make enough time for self growth. We are burned out. We continue to live life on auto pilot.

3. Approval seeking: Instead of acting from a place of authenticity, we wish to seek approval from others (this is mainly ego/ fear driven).

In the next post I will talk more about self awareness as well as give you some tools you can use to incorporate living from a place of self awareness in your everyday life (even when your buttons are pushed!).

These tools will help you to communicate with others better, and you will discover your true values and priorities so you can move toward the direction of living your true purpose. If you are reacting out of anger or fear and this is having a negative impact on your life, we will discuss how you can recognize your needs as well as learn to recognize and transform destructive patterns so you can come from a place of authenticity and empowerment.

In the meantime I want to mention this is not about being perfect! Everyone is reactionary from time to time, this is truly a process. In fact when you truly know yourself and your intentions you are a lot more likely to let go of control and be much more compassionate with yourself and others.

You learn to trust yourself and with trust comes understanding. The first step is awareness – you can recognize you ‘blew it’ and learn from it so you can hopefully do better next time around. Slowly but surely you can start to become more present, and choose your responses to others based on your TRUE feelings not old dysfunctional patterns you have been repeating.  There is no such thing as failure – only learning.

Where are you at when it comes to self awareness? I honor your responses/ comments and would love to hear from you!

Courage allows the successful woman to fail-
and learn powerful lessons-
from the failure-
so that in the end,
she didn’t fail at all.
– Maya Angelou

Resource: High-Impact communication skills with Susan Baile Volume 1 1992

Related articles

• Authenticity (psychologytoday.com)
• Mike Robbins: Seeing Adversity As Happening for Us, Not to Us (huffingtonpost.com)
• Integrity Right to the Core (LearnThis.ca)
• Self Confidence – 10 Simple Things You Can Do Now to Become More Empowered Tomorrow (socyberty.com)

“Why is it that when I don’t know what I want, there is always someone waiting to tell me what it is? I’m just lucky I guess. ~ Anne Wilson Schaef

Do you really know what your needs are?

If you are not living authentically, you may wake up one morning, look in the mirror, and wonder who the person is that is staring back at you.

If we get used to doing what everyone else expects of us, we may loose the ability to determine what we want. We may get confused about what it is exactly that is good and right for us.  Our needs are not being met because we do not know what those needs are.

Unless you know what you want, what your values are, and what is right for you, you cannot be an honest person. You are not only being dishonest with yourself, but you are being dishonest with everyone you are trying to please. You may think you are pleasing them, but the reality is they will never get to know the real you.

People who will try to punish you for being authentic

In The Essential Laws of Fearless Living by Guy Finley he states ” Walk away from anyone who “helps” you to feel that it’s necessary for you to hurt; leave anyone who causes you pain for “your own good”.

Often we may fear being authentic about our wants, needs and values because of the reaction of others. In my view, honesty is the best policy. Real love is unconditional.

“Never accept as natural or necessary any relationship outwardly- or inwardly – with a person or psychological state that punishes you. Say “NO” and just go! A whole new independent life awaits you.” Guy Finely

Here is a great needs inventory from the Center For Nonviolent Communication

This list may help you in your path to authenticity, do you recognize any of these needs that may not be getting met in your life right now? Are you able to communicate these needs in a healthy way with others?

Here are some great products and resources:   Guy Finely Fearless Living

Today I ran across this quote “It is very difficult for your child’s horizons to be greater than your own.”

I came to the realization that when we limit ourselves we tend to try to place those same limits on our children.

I later ran across this article Would you like to stop worrying about what others think?

In it the author talks about limiting beliefs. Of course we do not want to limit our children! But if we limit ourselves we cannot see the unlimited potential in others. How broad is your horizon? Are you living your passion and purpose or are past beliefs holding you back?

Sometimes we go into autopilot mode and shift back to limiting ourselves by beliefs others have placed on us. I can really relate to this. When I was in second grade a teacher that I really admired told me I was ‘slow’ (turns out I have dyslexia). I excelled in reading but always had problems with spelling and math (I would reverse letters and numbers) I carried that with me for a long time and avoided all forms of writing. It wasn’t until I started following my passion that I broke through the barriers I had placed on myself and began writing (it was necessary to graduate from the program I was enrolled in!) I literally had to make myself do it! I have to admit I almost did not enroll in college because I was afraid I would be ‘called out’ or ‘discovered’ that I was dyslexic.

Now writing is a central part of my life. I use it to communicate with students, express myself through this blog, and even as a healing tool. I no longer even think about my dyslexia. In fact the dyslexia has given me a wonderful gift, I believe it has everything to do with why I am creative in other ways- other senses are amplified and I am an extreme right brain thinker. This enables me to be very creative!

The lesson I learned is don’t limit yourself! Even if you think that you may not do extremely well at something, if you feel pulled to do it, go for it! You will find a way! Others will come into help, you may find with practice you will get better, and thank God for spell check!!!!

In the process you may find you will go in a different direction, that is OK too! It is all part of the learning process. But the main thing is don’t completely avoid something out of fear and don’t accept labels that others put on you. Sometimes it may take some convincing (you have that ‘voice’, ‘gremlin’  or ‘ monkey mind’ whatever you may call it) sometimes you just have to fake it till you make it, as you see small goals getting accomplished your confidence will increase. Imagine yourself as what you want to become, I like writing and reading affirmations that I create for myself to solidify my new goal and direction (we use index cards for study tools- why not for goals too!) These are just a few things you can do to overcome those limiting beliefs that you have been placing on yourself. Remember it is only a thought and it can be changed.

Your kids will benefit as well as you pass these lessons on to them!

More resources…

Outlaw’s Counsel

Manifest Mastermind

Click here for Healing Emotional Wounds

Click here for Overcoming Self-Sabotage

As a mom with a child who may not be considered ‘typical’ according to all of the developmental charts, I can completely relate to the anxiety one initially feels when you sense something may be ‘wrong’. It is easy to get caught up in information overload.  I got so many “shoulds’ from others. There is an ocean of information you can surf through on the internet. After my initial fear reaction, I realized I needed to take a deep breath, it was going to be OK. Once I started to come from a place of compassion and trust instead of fear, the people who were giving me all those ‘shoulds’ gradually just disappeared.

I remember when my daughter Ella first started showing some ‘red flags”, when she was 15 months old she lost the 10 plus words she had. She began having meltdowns, had extreme reactions to certain sounds, had extreme social anxiety,  and had problems transitioning from routine. Ella loved the show Signing Time (we saw it on Public TV). We began watching the show daily learning signs together. At first Ella only knew 2 or 3 signs, but months passed and she was able to pick up 10 plus signs. I noticed she was using signs just to show us she knew them- not in conversation (she would sign Table for example, not referring to a Table but to show us she knew the sign- she knew the sign for water and food but instead of using them she would scream or push when she wanted something)  An ‘expert’ told me not to bother with sign language because she was not using it pragmatically. That I should go with a picture communication exchange system or a communication device (small hand-held computer system). This did not resonate with me, I could not see carrying a book or computer around wherever we went, we are a very active  family and I have a baby son- what if these devices were lost? Plus Ella LOVED the signing, my heart told me there had to be a way. I explored other ways to teach Ella how to use the signs to communicate- I ran across a method called ‘manding’ (teaching how to use signs for commands) after several weeks of practice (and some resistance from Ella at first) the method worked!  I went with my intution and it has paid off! Ella’s confidence continues to grow as she practices a form of communication she loves, she can communicate with us any time and at any place. I am not discounting the use of PECS or computer systems- they are excellent for some children- just not ideal for our situation.

Following your authentic path as a family can be difficult- that is why it is so important to take care of yourself as a mom! If you are feeding your own body, mind, and spirit you will be available to make the right decisions for your family and your unique situation.  By focusing on self care when needed, you will not only be able to be there for your kids because you will have optimum health and state of mind, but you will be an excellent role model for them in the future. When you are centered you can be more confident that the decistions you are making are the right ones for your situation at that time.

The sign language debate was not the only choice we made as a family that people disagreed with and I am sure it won’t be the last… But at least I can feel confident that we are going with what is best for OUR authentic family and learning along the way!

There is an excellent post over at Close to the root blog about ‘parenting out of the box’- a perfect example of following your authentic path, enjoy!