Yesterday at breakfast I managed to break all the NLP guidance I give the kids and there’s me an experienced NLP Master Practitioner. Firstly my 15 yr old son kept slurping his tea noisily so I asked him to stop – naturally he continued louder than ever because it amused him. When I asked him again and was a bit annoyed with him, I realized I was absolutely doing what I advise parents not to do. I was rising to the bait and giving him attention for behaviour I didn’t want repeated. That’s why he repeated it, because it worked. He got my attention. So instead of starting off the day with a happy family breakfast, it was a bit grouchy. This was so unnecessary because in the whole scheme of things slurping really isn’t important to me. When our child does something annoying we have to check in with our values. Does this thing matter to me? How important is it? What is more important, to have a meal together in a friendly way before we all start work for the day or to correct his slurping. Well obviously I should have just stayed quiet.
Then what did I do next? Despite knowing full well that my husband has a visual internal referencing system – he wants to see things rather than be told – I proceeded to impart the details of my day when he asked what I was doing. So he just looked at me in a hazy sort of way and was clearly confused by so many different pieces of information. What I know he prefers is for me to pop a note on the noticeboard then he knows what I’m up to. So we too were slightly out of rapport.
The reason for telling you this is for you to think (as I didn’t on that occasion!) about how different members of your family prefer to be told things. The other day my Mum told me she’d really annoyed my brother (easily done!) by saying “I assume you’ll be spending Christmas with Sarah in Wimbledon?” He asked her why she couldn’t simply ask him what he was doing for Christmas. Assumptions can come across as what we call ‘unclean’ in NLP terms because we are mind-reading which is slightly disrespectful.
Some of us like to see information, others like to hear it and others like to get involved, for example “shall we…..?” or “ what do you think of the idea of….”. Bear in mind these preferences especially as you plan activities over the Christmas holidays.
Intense family time can lead to fracas so to avoid it, think about what is important to you this Christmas as just focus on those things. If having the house really tidy isn’t that important but everyone getting along nicely is, then overlook minor transgressions and focus on what’s going well.
Then lastly, when you get it wrong, forgive yourself like I did. We can’t get it right all the time, and remember, neither can they. Learn from what goes well and do more of it. One of my clients told me yesterday that her hubbie likes to do the opposite of what she asks so if she says ‘ I don’t suppose you want to do the washing up, do you?” off he goes to do it whereas when she asks him to do it, he procrastinates and she ends up doing it herself.
Get to know what works!
……and do it again…..and again
The reason for telling you this is for you to think (as I didn’t on that occasion!) about how different members of your family prefer to be told things. The other day my Mum told me she’d really annoyed my brother (easily done!) by saying “I assume you’ll be spending Christmas with Sarah in Wimbledon?” He asked her why she couldn’t simply ask him what he was doing for Christmas. Assumptions can come across as what we call ‘unclean’ in NLP terms because we are mind-reading which is slightly disrespectful.
Some of us like to see information, others like to hear it and others like to get involved, for example “shall we…..?” or “ what do you think of the idea of….”. Bear in mind these preferences especially as you plan activities over the Christmas holidays.
Intense family time can lead to fracas so to avoid it, think about what is important to you this Christmas as just focus on those things. If having the house really tidy isn’t that important but everyone getting along nicely is, then overlook minor transgressions and focus on what’s going well.
Then lastly, when you get it wrong, forgive yourself like I did. We can’t get it right all the time, and remember, neither can they. Learn from what goes well and do more of it. One of my clients told me yesterday that her hubbie likes to do the opposite of what she asks so if she says ‘ I don’t suppose you want to do the washing up, do you?” off he goes to do it whereas when she asks him to do it, he procrastinates and she ends up doing it herself.
Get to know what works!
……and do it again…..and again
RSS Feed
