Often times we find ourselves agreeing to do something, sure we are clear about the agreement, sure that the other person has the same understanding of the agreement\u2014but then ![\"milk](\"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/milk-carton.JPG\" "\\"milk")
how come there can be such misunderstandings that leave us so perplexed?\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want you home late tonight\u201d can mean one thing for a parent (e.g., 10:00 pm) and another for an adolescent (e.g., midnight).\u00a0 Clean the kitchen may mean one thing for a parent (clean and put away the dishes, clean the counter, sweep the floor) and another thing for your adolescent (put the dishes in the sink).<\/p>\n
To teach your teenager about agreements and the need for them to insure their own clarity and that they and the other are agreeing to the same thing, you can do the following exercise: <\/p>\n
Imagine I am asking you to go to the store and I say, \u201cGo get me some milk.\u201d\u00a0 You have come back from the store with the milk.\u00a0 I ask you \u201cwhat kind of milk did you get and you say, 2%, and I tell you \u201cbut I wanted whole milk.\u201d\u00a0 So, you go back to the store and come back with whole milk.\u00a0 I ask you, \u201cWhat size is the container\u201d and you say it\u2019s a quart and I tell you, \u201cBut I wanted a half-gallon.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 How are you feeling right now and what are you thinking?\u00a0\u00a0 Usually, your teen is going to say, \u201cI\u2019m mad at you because you keep sending me back to the store; why don\u2019t you make up your mind; it\u2019s your fault for not being clear, so you go to the store. You don\u2019t\u2019 appreciate anything I do.\u201d\u00a0 Etc., etc., etc.<\/p>\n
Here is the teaching point:\u00a0 Yes, I could have been more clear, not only as your parent, but yes, I could have been clearer if I were your teacher, your employer or your friend.\u00a0 But I wasn\u2019t and any frustration I have teaches me that I need to be specific in my request.\u00a0 AND, whether or not I am it is equally important that you are clear about what you are agreeing to\u2026if you are not then you are the one who is responsible for the frustration you are experiencing.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take me off the hook but it doesn\u2019t take you off the hook either.\u00a0 So, in any agreement, make sure that: 1) you are clear about the who, what, when and how and 2) say it back to the person to make sure that they have the same understanding you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Often times we find ourselves agreeing to do something, sure we are clear about the agreement, sure that the other person has the same understanding of the agreement\u2014but then how come there can be such misunderstandings that leave us so perplexed?\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want you home late tonight\u201d can mean one thing for a parent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","category-pre-schoolers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joycejuster.com\/thoughts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}