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I know being a child of an executive coach is difficult. However, I also know just being a kid of any parent nowadays is tough. As parents, we are always teaching or correcting our kids to minimize their mistakes. We are always in teacher mode.
Recently I was really convicted by this. My middle child, Kamdyn, is pretty good at gymnastics. However, I never did gymnastics so I don’t know any of the skills. Whereas most all other sports I can jump right in and know the rules, the moves, the strategy, the terminology. Not gymnastics.
During a recent reflection of thinking how to improve as a parent for each of my kids, it came to mind to better understand gymnastics. I was feeling guilty that Kamdyn would tell me the gymnastic skill she was working on and I had no idea what she was talking about.
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How can I learn?
I immediately sent a note to Kamdyn that when I returned from my work trip, I wanted to go on a date and learn about her gymnastic skills.
Well, I was blown away. We went to a coffee shop and she was so excited that she put together a PowerPoint with YouTube videos of all the skills! During our meeting, I also diligently took notes of each of the moves, which paid off since she quizzed me. We were there for 2 hours!
Here is one of my three pages of notes!
Yes, I feel better about knowing the gymnastics stunts, however, the real win is that Kamdyn feels appreciated and loved. She was extremely grateful for me taking the time to listen to her.
At our men trips to Montana with New Frontier Ministries, we will often talk about a phrase used in marriage teaching that is applicable here as well.
You need to first learn your spouse so that you can love your spouse so that you can then lead your spouse.
Not the reverse order. A lot of us use the conditional approach that we will lead our spouses, and if they follow us we will love them, then we may care enough to actually learn about them.
Same is true here. Yes, we want to lead our kids, but we need to make sure we are also learning about them.
What do you need to learn that your kids do?
What do you need to learn from your kids?
Thank you for reading!
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