Last week was about transforming experiences with a little effort.  This week is about tough conversations and being curious vs judgmental.

A few weeks ago, my dad told me that he wanted to talk to me about parenting and my kids.  Right now, I’m assuming that a fair amount of you reading this are cringing, because you can see how quickly this can go poorly.  Parenting easily can feel extremely personal.  I’ve been in those situations where the conversation is just a sneaky way for the person to judge you and tell you everything you’re doing is wrong without understanding your situation.  Have you?  Those chats don’t particularly feel good.  The conversation with my dad wasn’t anything like that.  It was a great chat, because the moment we sat down he made it clear that he wanted to understand things from my perspective. 

He starts by admitting that he can only see one part of what is going and that he doesn’t have the full story.  He also acknowledges that the rules have changed a lot from when he and my mom raised my brother and me.  This sets the stage that this is a conversation to learn and not judge.  From there we dive in.  He shares an observation he has and how he is connecting the dots based on his experience.  I respond by saying that I also have seen what he has observed, and I can see how he connects the dots the way he does.  Then, I offer some additional context he doesn’t see every day and how that’s shaping the parenting decisions we are making.  We keep repeating this pattern as we dive deep.  We talk about parenting in a completely different world and entirely different challenges he and my mom didn’t have to encounter.  We talk about mental health and navigating how to parent and lead in a family with neurodivergence.  I talk about how we are thankful to have therapists to help us navigate situations that I’m not equipped to lead through.  We talk about my family’s decision to homeschool, and how we are constantly balancing mental, physical, emotional, and social health with that decision.  We talk about the fine balance between showing support and raising resilient kids, especially in a world that may not accept them.  I share how I feel I’m over my head sometimes, because there isn’t an obvious playbook to navigate all these situations and sometimes it’s just about making the best trade-offs with the information we have.  Throughout all of this, my dad asks follow-up questions to better understand and shares how he had never considered some of the angles before.  By the end of everything, I can’t say that my dad fully understands or fully agrees with all my decisions.  It would be hard to fully understand without being in the same situation.  At the same time, I can say that he has a deeper understanding and that he is not passing judgment.  I left the conversation feeling so good that we had it, and blessed I have a dad I can talk about these things with.

What does this have to do with anything?  Think about work and life for a minute.  Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you were going to have a conversation to share ideas, when the other person just wanted to pass judgement?  Have you ever been that person who passed judgment instead of seeking to understand?  I know I’ve been that person.  We like to think that we are open minded and non-judgmental, but how true is that?  How open are we to learning and considering something different from what we believe?  In our story this week, there are so many ways that conversation could have went poorly and ultimately caused harm to our relationship, but it didn’t because my dad approached things from a place of genuine curiosity.

The challenge: Are you TRULY seeking to understand?  How open are you to learning and growing?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry