Selling It to Your Kids: Empathizing
Posted by Gail | Filed under Parenting 101
While active listening is job one when it comes to getting kids to do what you want them to do, active listening alone won’t do it. Another tool you need in your parenting toolbelt is “empathizing.” When you empathize with your Mini-me, you acknowledge your child’s feelings. The statement, “I’m sorry you got so upset,” is a simple sentence that is enormously important in letting children know you recognize how they are feeling. Customers’ egos and children’s egos are remarkably delicate and need to be coddled. By acknowledging the feelings they are experiencing, you help them to accept those feelings and move on.
I still remember the first time I “acknowledged” my one-year old and the almost immediate payoff.
My daughter had been playing with something she should not have had. Her grandmother took it away rather abruptly, leaving her angry and crying. I pulled her up onto my lap and said, “So you’re pretty angry at the way Nanny took that away from you.” She cried and nodded slowly. “Sometimes you don’t understand why you can have one thing and not another, right?” Again she nodded, but this time she made eye-contact with me. She knew I understood. “It can be very frustrating not knowing what all the rules are, particularly when someone gets angry at you for breaking a rule you didn’t know.” I could see the light in her eyes shining with relief. By acknowledging how she was feeling, we ended what could have been an “episode.”
Perhaps the thing salespeople and parents grapple with the most is the tendency of their audience – be it a demanding customer or a petulant child – to NOT want to do the very thing we need them to do. They may have a very good reason, or they may be basing their refusal to cooperate on something they just don’t understand.
In the world of sales, “objections” fall into one of two categories:
real objections – yes, the printer is rather slow when it’s producing full-colour photographs or the play-date is rather short because mommy has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.
misconception – something your child thinks that isn’t exactly so.
There are ways to handle each of these objections, but that’s a blog for another day.
February 1, 2012 at 7:41 am
i like your approach to your own child in letting them know by verbally walking through their feelings with them. Great example to show even this old mom. I am going to practise this today.
February 1, 2012 at 9:16 am
I’ll practice this on my husband. Maybe the light of understanding will dawn in his eyes. lol.
February 1, 2012 at 9:23 am
I’m not sure i understand “i’m sorry your so upset” .. why are you sorry? why not say “it sounds like your upset” or “it looks like your really upset”.. Honestly after 25 years of working inthe childcare field and teaching parenting courses, I feel strongly that we dont teach children what the word sorry really means. One of my pet peeves is teachers/parents that MAKE children say they are sorry or MAKE children go hug the person they are fighting with.. what does this produce? children who SAY they are sorry just to get out of situations.. do they mean it? not necessarily.
think about it for a minute.. if someone ticked you off and you finally slugged them would you feel like saying sorry and hugging them? or would you think to yourself “man that felt good”… lol
lets teach kids what sorry really means and not just toss the word around… your child might be sorry if they accidently dropped one of your good dishes and you can see they are visibly upset by what has happened.. that might be a good time to say ” i can see that you are upset this happened and you might be sorry.. and its ok”
i do however totally agree with acknowledging the child’s emotions and situation and giving them new words to describe and recognize what they are going through.
“frustrated, angry, upset, disappointed, sad,” are all words that might be what they are feeling and teaches them different ways to describe what is happening…
thanks for the post and for allowing for various conversations regarding it!
February 1, 2012 at 10:00 am
As a mom of a soon-to-be three-year-old, I regularly use the “I’m sorry you’re feeling …” and it totally calms her down. She very rarely descends into a temper tantrum, and I am sorry, so I don’t think this is a misuse of the word. I do feel badly that she’s sad, angry or frustrated, and I think she is soothed by my understanding her. Everyone wants to be seen, understood, empathized with, so this is the message I give her when I say I’m sorry. And she’s developed her own empathy for others, including me. When I’m tired or unwell, she’ll take me to the couch, get me to lie down, cover me with her blanket, get me a pillow and a stuffed animal and give me a kiss. She’ll say, I’m sorry you’re sick/tired/etc, and I really do feel better. I think the key to it all is to see that we’re all the same, no matter how young or old, and we all want to be heard. Great post, Gail!
February 1, 2012 at 10:19 am
@ Ellen.. i’m glad your daughter understands… my rant seemed to be more on the making kids say their sorry and not truly getting what it means..or people saying their sorry while they are rolling their eyes… thats what we dont want to teach them…
have a great day!
February 1, 2012 at 10:21 am
I use this kind of ‘active listening’ all the time. I’m not sure when I started it or where I picked it up but it has served me very well in my job, my marriage and other relationships. I run the warranty department at my job so this skill is invaluable in warranty situations where you are constantly fielding angry calls. There are so many situations where one may not be able to give someone else exactly what that person wants/ thinks they need but if you can make that person feel that they are heard and that you understand how they feel etc. it is so much easier to find a solution that is agreeable for everyone.
February 1, 2012 at 10:59 am
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Definition of SORRY
1: feeling sorrow, regret, or penitence
2: mournful, sad
3: inspiring sorrow, pity, scorn, or ridicule : pitiful
I find nothing wrong to feel sad about a child being upset and using the word sorry is just another way to emphasize with a child’s or anyone’s pain.Also, using a word often to display how you feel does not diminish its meaning, the same with saying “I love you” to your family everyday.
February 1, 2012 at 10:59 am
I love this post! As someone who works with adults who rarely had their feelings validated (as children or adults), I aim to teach my wee one that his feelings are his feelings, and they aren’t wrong (even if the behaviour might be). Giving him the words for his feelings are an important part of this, and as Gail points out, feeling heard and understood is a powerful experience for all of us.
February 1, 2012 at 12:47 pm
My employer offered out IT team an Emotional Intelligence, which touches on this delicate subject, and is applicable to any social “assistance” situation. It is based on active listening, and compassion. Ultimately, the last phase is to help the other person reach an ultimate solution on their own. There is a subtle but meaningful difference from proposing a solution on the person you are helping.
February 1, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Correction to above message …
My employer offered our IT team “Emotional Intelligence” training, which touches on this subject, and is applicable to any social “assistance” situation. It is based on active listening, and compassion for the person you are dealing with. Ultimately, the last phase is to help the other person reach an ultimate solution on their own. There is a subtle but meaningful difference between letting the person come up with the solution, and proposing them a solution. The latter is not as beneficial and positive for the person in crisis mode.
February 1, 2012 at 4:07 pm
I tried to teach my son to apologize and to take responsibility for his actions and take ownership of these sometimes emotional concequences. For example: ” I see by my actions that this has upset you and I apologize. ”
For me hearing ” I’m SORRY ” is like an empty promise, it don’t mean much.
I guess this was my attempt to teach him how to treat people better and hopefully he can better recognize how he wants to be treated.
February 1, 2012 at 4:18 pm
When a teenager lost control on the ice and smashed his van into our garage, he said he was sorry.
But then he posted all the pictures on his facebook.
SO, while he may have said ’sorry’, he was not Remorseful. And I wanted him to feel Remorse, regardless of what terminology he used.
February 1, 2012 at 5:11 pm
When I was teaching my son about apologizing I emphasized that he needed to look at the person, use their name and indicate exactly what he was sorry for…i.e. “Joey, I am sorry I took your toy”…that way he was taking ownership of what he did and it meant something to the other person…much better than just the standard “sorry”…
February 3, 2012 at 2:15 pm
@Heather – after 25 years working in the child care field, you are unable to understand that when my kid misbehaves, and they are sad, I am also sad that they are sad and I would like to express this by saying “I am sorry that you are sad”????!!!
February 4, 2012 at 9:01 am
[...] Raising kids can be tough but thankfully Gail Vaz-Oxlade shared a little snippet of advice when it comes to Selling It To Your Kids: Empathizing. [...]