Unison Parenting Blog: You Get What You Emphasize

I heard one of my favorite football coaches say this week that you get what you emphasize to your team. The same is true for parenting.

A good example is the kind of questions you ask your child when they get home from school. One father took a more direct approach than "How was school?" He started asking his 12-year-old son, "Who did you help today?"

As a result, the son now starts his daily description with "I held the door,", or "I helped a friend with math," or "I asked someone to sit with us at lunch."

Helpfulness is a great quality to instill. Sometimes we want to emphasize other qualities, including those that boost our child's self-esteem.

When my daughter went off to college, I had no concerns about her academic capabilities. I did worry whether my introverted daughter would make friends. So whenever we talked or texted, I would ask, "Did you meet anybody new today? Did you talk to anyone at class or at lunch? Are there any social events going on at your dorm?" I knew she could become stressed and lonely without friends, and she went in knowing no one at the college she chose. We laugh about it now, years later; she realizes those reminders made an impact in how she handled college. (And she wound up with some great friends she would bring home).

As parents, let's think about both the qualities we want to instill in our child as well as the concerns we have about their well-being. Then let's emphasize those aspects in our questions and in our assistance to them.