I was a teacher of adult learners for the majority of my working life - and, as a teacher, my adult students wanted me to tell them how to do things: How to say this or that in English. How to apply for a job. They expected me to know these things - and they believed whatever I told them. If something didn't work for them, I would suggest another approach, from a different angle... Advise, try, feedback. Those were the steps.
Parenting adult children, I've discovered isn't at all like that. In fact, it's probably the exact opposite - if I give my kids advice, they refuse to even grudgingly try it! And the feedback comes in the beginning, when they say it won't work!
The only surprising thing about all this is that I am surprised.
I shouldn't be because I didn't follow my parents' (solicited or unsolicited) advice very often either!
A friend of mine confided that the very fact his father suggested he become an actuary was reason enough not to consider it. Years later, when he discovered what an actuary did, he recognized that his father had been right. It would have been the perfect career for him!
Looking back on my young adult years, I remember not wanting to live my parents' life. Which is probably why I didn't always follow their advice. That doesn't mean I didn't listen to it. I often did (in spite of myself - it was given so often, I knew what they were going to say before they said it!) I did weigh it - and try to understand it (in the context of their experience). But then I did my own thing, in the context of my experience... The world they grew up in was so different from my own. I didn't think they understood my situation (and they probably didn't) any more than - a generation later - I understand my children's world view.
And that's probably the way it has been throughout the generations.
When I ask my husband how I can be less directive in giving advice (less like a teacher), he turns to his own workplace model in social work and counseling.
The counseling approach is to ask probing questions, he tells me. So instead of suggesting (or telling) the person to do something, one might ask: Have you considered....? And if there is a reluctance to try, to perhaps ask: What's holding you back from trying...? Then leave the questions with them to reflect on.
Should I try that approach? I ask myself...
My mind flashes back to another time when I (in my inept way) tried to use a counseling technique with one of my children.
After he mentioned something that was bothering him, instead of suggesting that he do this or that, I asked him: How does that make you feel?
I'm not sure where that question came from... Maybe from some workshop on empathy that I had just taken.
He opened his mouth, as if to answer, then looked at me angrily and said: Wait a minute! That's not a mother-answer! Mothers don't talk like that!
Then he walked away... I felt as if I had betrayed his trust!
Mmmm. Maybe I'd better stick to the method I know! And if it doesn't work - try to say nothing at all! Because by this time, my kids know all my normal answers. And if they share something with me, the old answers are probably what they want to hear!
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