The Day I Stopped Trying to Fix Every Problem for My Kid

See if you can spot what I was doing wrong in this conversation with my son. 

Son: “I’m never going to wear those shoes again.” 

Me: “Those are great shoes! And they were expensive. Plus, your cousin James (subtext: older cool kid) wears them, so you know they’re cool. You just need to get used to them. Wear them for a week and then see how you feel.” 

In my experience, it’s not at all obvious to most people where my response went wrong.  

This probably feels like a familiar interaction to most parents. You can likely also tell what the back story is — we spent a little extra to get something he thought was cool, and for no good reason at all he is walking away from it. 

The next part may feel familiar too. My mind went to thinking my kid was being ungrateful and wasteful. I couldn’t just let that go. Not only did I need to fix the issue of the shoes, but I also needed to fix his attitude so this kind of thing wouldn’t happen in the future. 

First let me explain what I was doing wrong. Then I’ll share a great neurolinguistic programming tool and show how the science of influence works much better. 

What I did wrong was to try to fix the problem. Here’s why it didn’t work: Because I had not earned the right to influence him, my solutions fell on deaf ears. Plus, I didn’t understand the problem he was trying to solve. So as far as my son was concerned, my solution was irrelevant.   

I got frustrated as he dug in his heels about the issue. Clearly, I was just being reasonable, and I felt he was not listening. I can see the irony of that now: I, of course, was the one who was not listening.  

Here’s the better approach, otherwise known as what I should have done. Meet your kid where they are emotionally. It’s called “pacing.” You join them for a moment. Walk at their pace, as it were. Try to appreciate what is emotionally real for them. Acknowledge that they feel what they feel, and that you can understand feeling that way. You don’t have to agree that they should feel that way, but if you let them have their feelings and understand where they are coming from, you create an opening to communicate.  

Research shows that when people feel understood, they become open to your ideas. That outcome — a kid who is actually listening — is great. But it gets better. When you try to understand where they are emotionally, that tends to help them understand their emotions better too. When that happens, both of you often have a much better idea of what really needs to be solved. And in many cases, the kids do the problem solving on their own. That saves you — the parent — a lot of work and struggle.  

In my case, here’s what that looked like.  

Son: “I’m never going to wear those shoes again.”  

Me (matching the tone and energy of my kid to nonverbally show him I was joining him emotionally): “You’re never going to wear those shoes again.” Then I paused and looked at him for a bit while trying to get a sense of how he felt and continued with, “Tell me more.”

Because I paced alongside him, I learned a good friend of his had made a comment about the way he looked. We went back and forth as I tried to understand his perspective: what happened, what went through his mind and what he felt. As we spoke, I was tempted to problem solve by teaching him to take the other kid’s perspective and show how he might not have meant it as an insult, or by telling him how he should make his own decisions about what he wants to wear rather than worry about what others think. But I stopped myself, and just tried to join him and understand him instead. After about 10 minutes, he just picked up and moved on to a new topic. He also wore the shoes many times.  

How can this tool work for me day-to-day?

In the class I teach for dads, this tool is often a game changer. It can cut the work and the frustration of being a parent in half. It’s one of the tools that the dads in the class start using instantly and never stop using because it just makes things easier. Unless you have permission to influence someone, you can’t get far. And unless you know what actually needs to be solved, your solutions are likely to be off the mark. 

It’s the kind of tool you can use in any interaction too. For many people, all it takes is to say to yourself, “What if I try pacing here?”, “What if I try to meet them where they are first?” To be sure, there is an art to it, and you can keep getting better at it with practice. But just having the intention to do it can go a long way.  

With older kids you can talk about what they’re feeling. When they say “I can’t do math. I suck at it,” you can connect with their feelings and find out what’s stopping them from doing math.

With younger kids, you can connect by playing back what they’ve said or naming their emotions.  

With a preschooler, you can meet them where they are emotionally during tearful moments. If you just hold them and let them cry for a minute, you are communicating that you are there, you get it and you care. Once they calm a bit you can distract them, or tell a story or offer advice.   

Less effort and better problem-solving

As adults we all know there are many times when we don’t want someone else to try to solve our problems. It feels dismissive. For example, my wife confirms she prefers me to pace her rather than to start mansplaining how she should live her life. 

Most people want to solve their own problems, and if they want your input they will be more likely to seek it if they believe you are on their side, with them emotionally, and that you understand what they are trying to solve.  

Because I take this approach, rather than trying to solve problems, I experience less tension with my three kids. The problems still get solved, often more quickly, with better outcomes. I feel less exasperated. I work less. And we enjoy more good times together. To be fair, I don’t always remember to do it. But you don’t have to be perfect. You can just do it more often and get great results.