My family review and the 3 most important questions to ask your child
We’re heading into the summer holidays here in Australia so we’ll be taking a few weeks to rest and recharge ahead of an epic 2023!
Each year my family and I ask ourselves some important questions to guide our life goals and keep them on our radar as we navigate the busyness of daily life. We are in our third year of review and what I love most about doing this review is hearing my children’s innermost desires and how they are so intuitive about the life they want to live and the contribution they want to make.
I’d like to share these questions with you today.
Sometimes, we think we have to do so much as parents to shape our children and feel like we are doing our best for them. As time has gone on and I’m now in my 15th year of parenting my own children and my 11th year as a parent coach, I realise there are only a few things that really matter in giving our children the best chance to thrive.
And on a recent course of study I took to further my transformational coaching skills, two goals for life were offered and resonated with me profoundly for parenting. To live a full life, raise our children to embody:
A right to be who they are
A right to become their innermost desires.
I realised these two goals encapsulate all of my work in Parent as Leader. The parent leadership style that helps a child to own who they are. And the leadership skills and parenting style that enable a child to listen to the deepest part of themselves and what they desire.
Where this translates into day-to-day life is that according to the Gallup Global Survey in 2021, we have 79% of employees disengaged at work. And whilst they spoke about the $ 7.9 trillion productivity cost to the economy. My mind has always been obsessed with the mental health and wellbeing cost, the cost of solutions to the world's problems today, and the cost of developing healthy and happy relationships.
When children (and adults) feel a right to be who they are and become what they most want, they are engaged in their work, family, and life, they enjoy a deeper sense of mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. They enjoy a deeper connection to themselves and those around them and they naturally seek to help better our world.
And that's the world I want my children to grow up in and be a part of.
Now more than ever, after the past few years of unimaginable change, we need to think differently, act differently, and be different in our approach to parenting. We need more awareness, more healing, more compassion, more resilience, more courage, and more deliberate leadership to support ourselves and our children to thrive.
And setting goals in a slightly different way is a great step towards this. From a goal-setting framework by Vishen Lakhiani - author of The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, the three most important questions you can ask yourself and your children (from age 8 and up) are:
What do you want to experience in life?
How do you want to grow and develop yourself?
How do you want to contribute to the world?
Here are some more detailed instructions if you'd like to do this review. I hope you articulate some real gems about yourself and your child.
From my family to yours, wishing you a precious and peaceful holiday season.
See you in 2023!
Much love,
Dina