A parent shared this story after learning a skill during her last workshops series:

Her two young sons come to her, fighting each other for a turn on the ipad. So before she used to say get frustrated and angry with them.

With the workshops she learnt how to get them to solve their own problems (this skill is covered in the Alternatives to Saying NO workshop):
"So boys... how do you think you could solve this so it works for both of you? What needs to be in place so you think this is fair to both of you?"

Quickly they came up with some ideas and off they went. But for me, the real magic came when this parent shared that later that evening, the boys came up to her and said....

"Mom, can we watch the ipad again, and we have already agreed on how we can watch this so it is fair to both of us. We will take turns of 15 minutes each."

Now picture this..... your children come to you with solutions to their problems that you didn't even know were problems yet!!!!

Yes!

The skill: This skill is called - Describe the challenge.- How it works is you just describe what the challenge is, and ask your child if they have any ideas on how to solve it.

In the example above, the mom didn't know how to get the children to feel things were fair. So she just asked them to find a solution that would work for both of them, and asked to see if they could come up with a solution.

As parents, we often feel we have to be the judge and the know-it-all. In any situation, actively seek how to make your children feel part of the solution instead of just the problem.