Shift Focus: 7 Day Quest

We need to have a variety of lenses through which to view our children.

If we get stuck with the giant lens on our camera we only get to see the details. We fixate on one tiny aspect of their behaviour. We get consumed with getting perfection. We shift the frame but we never see the big picture.

Likewise, if we’re stuck on wide-angle looking at everything we possibly can, we can feel overwhelmed, not able to see what makes sense to focus on. We can miss important details.

This series of questions is aimed at helping you consider the view of parenting and your child through multiple lenses. I’d invite you to copy down one each day and consider it, chat about it with your child or your partner or a friend. What other questions does your answer bring up? Write those down to consider another time.

As you go through these questions be kind to yourself. The idea is to get clarity and understanding of what is working well and what changes in focus you might choose to make.

SATURDAY

What about your child or children brings you joy & what about being a parent brings you joy? If you haven’t already, remember to share that with your child.

SUNDAY

What do you believe your role as a parent is? What other roles do you have and how do they integrate with your role as a parent? What changes, if any, are needed for you to feel you adequately fulfil your role as a parent?

MONDAY

What 4 values are most important for your family? (e.g. compassion, fun, curiosity, sincerity, grit, resilience, adventure etc) What changes are needed to ensure you integrate them into family life?

TUESDAY

Thinking about the future, as your child leaves home what skills do you want them to have? What do you want to do now to help your child develop those skills?

WEDNESDAY

What sort of parent do you hope your child will be? How does this differ from how you are as a parent? Are there changes you’d like to make to align the two?

THURSDAY

When they are grown-up what would you like your child to say about your parenting style? What, if anything, would you like to change about your style?

FRIDAY

What challenges do you currently have with your child? Thinking about each of your current challenges, what advice would you give a friend facing the same challenge? What one piece of advice will you commit to putting into place to address the challenge?

Questions are a powerful way to ignite our thinking on how we parent. I hope answering these questions has helped give you some clarity on what you would like to choose to focus on, what changes you might like to implement and some small steps to making those changes happen.

As parents, our focus can all too often be on our child’s undesirable behaviour, but if we are able to step back from time to time and use our photographer’s eye, we can focus on what’s useful in the moment. We can see the beauty of our child from afar and from up close and we can reframe their behaviour as part of the whole picture. With an understanding of the whole picture, we can choose our actions more wisely.

If answering these questions brings up a whole lot more questions click below and let me know how I can help.