Mom loves to give advice, give out «CC» and delegate. Most often, I reacted to this indifferently or aggressively, which resulted in my mother’s grievances and our quarrels. And recently, while working on the “Help” exercise, I found an interesting solution: to respond to advice with a request for help.
For example? We live in foreign countries, and my mother does not like that my son knows English and French well, but speaks Russian poorly. So he advises: “You need to learn more poems in Russian with your son!”
I answer: “Yes, mom, you are right! Poems really work well for the development of speech. Can you help and select for us the best, most beautiful poem? And we will learn it.»
Mom calmed down, now I’m waiting for poems from her. By the way, oddly enough, while there are no poems from her, the topic seemed to be closed. Maybe she just wanted to talk? Participate in the upbringing of a grandson?
I can offer a thesis: “If a person is giving advice and suddenly they are asked to help on the topic of advice with a real action, that person may become less interested in giving advice.” Then, if you want to reduce the number of tips, accept them and involve the author of the advice in active joint work on the implementation of his own recommendation!
For a mental exercise and exercise, try to come up with a request for a favor to these tips:
- Situation 1. “Why did you hang on to your studies in psychology? You have nothing to do? When was the last time you worked with a child?
- Situation 2. “You need another apartment. This one is small for you and the area is not good. Are you looking for something? Children grow up, they need space.
My response options:
Situation 1. “Yes, yes, but you speak the truth. You’re right, I’ll go and work. Can you help? Listen to a 20-minute recording of this webinar, and then quickly tell me what the point is? Thank you, dear.»
Situation 2. “Yes, yes, we need space and a good area. I just have a request to you, please help me. We need to see which district has the best school in the city and whether there are any other standards, how many square meters are needed for a family of 4 people. If you google it for me and at least text me, I will be very grateful, thank you, dear.
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