Six Steps to Parent Feedback Success: #5 Having a Helping Spirit

For most parenting service providers having a helping spirit is much easier than the previous step that we discussed of being interactive and flexible. In this blog series aimed at addressing what we do after a parenting assessment, we have explored the importance of identifying parents’ strengths, using a thoughtful strategy, and being future and improvement focused.  In the last post we explored the most challenging step for me, being interactive and flexible.  This time we explore the concept of bringing a helping spirit to your feedback with parent.  Hendrie Weisenger says that those showing a helping spirit give three important messages:

• I care about you and will prove it by investing my time and energy in helping you.
• I am confident you can improve, that you can do the task at hand.   
• I am committed to helping you.  You are not alone.  I will support your efforts.

(H. Weissenger, 1989, The Critical Edge, Harper Row, p. 43).  

Thus, a helping spirit goes beyond caring, and includes personal involvement in the parent’s growth.  Those providing parenting services join with a family for a period of time.  Previously, we discussed the importance of becoming a credible source of useful information and pointing out the positives.  Both of these are part of your helping spirit as you join with a family.  

A valid parenting assessment tool informs your helping spirit. Programs that present parenting assessment as a tool that helps us help you improve as a parent, find family acceptance very high.

This practical tip provides some theatrics for our feedback workshop.  We start with a role play showing the most common way we get feedback.  Typically, a piece of praise is given, followed by another piece of praise.  If the giver is really nice, even a third bit of praise is then followed by “but” and then the criticism.  “But” means disregard everything in the sentence that went before, and what follows is the important part of this sentence.  In the workshop we try an experiment of replacing the “but” with an “and”.  However, since the use of “but” is so common, most people have become conditioned to expect the “but.”  If someone gives more than one compliment, we are conditioned to expect bad news will follow.  So even when we replace “but” with “and”, the problem remains.  So what to do? 

I recommend giving lots of authentic, credible reinforcement for effective parenting behaviors.  Praise often and sincerely.  It is like KIPS item #11 Encouragement, where you want to genuinely support and reinforce positive behaviors.  Then when it comes time to help someone seize an opportunity to improve, you can focus exclusively on the steps to success.  At the point you want to change a parenting behavior, be sure to focus the feedback on that alone.

I am struck by sports coaches who often appear to show the opposite. Too often you see them haranguing their players after they make a mistake.  A very famous example is Bobby Knight, the most successful basketball coach in college history.  I recall hearing an interview with a player he had once coached.  The interviewer asked about the abusive nature of Coach Knight’s feedback.  The player responded that he understood that “Coach had my best interest at heart and that the yelling and throwing stuff was a sign of how much he cared.”  The player was able to look beyond the Coach’s histrionics, because he was convinced of his helping spirit.  I do not approve or condone abusive behavior, but the Coach Knight example teaches us an important lesson.  If you establish a relationship where your helping spirit is deeply understood, then you can make profound mistakes and the helpful information still gets through.  I would further contend that a coach that follows the recommended best feedback practices in this series would be even more successful.

In the feedback workshop, we practice giving feedback in role plays.  From this experience, one thing I have noticed is that giving feedback to family members is particularly difficult.  This is because, rather than a helping spirit, the feedback giver is sometimes trying to get the other person to change for the feedback giver’s benefit.  When giving feedback to a loved one, do some soul searching first to be sure you truly have the other’s best interest at heart. 

Next in the parenting assessment feedback series, we will turn to Step #6 Being Specific and Prescriptive.  An effective parenting coach works to convince the family of their helping spirit.  This rapport allows you to promote nurturing parenting behaviors.  How do you show a helping spirit to your families?  Post your comments below.

If after assessing parenting you follow all the steps in giving feedback, most often the parent will welcome the opportunity to improve.  After all, it comes from a trusted source, who 1) recognizes many positive things about me, 2) consciously works to protect my self-esteem, 3) focuses on my improvement and future, and 4) is interactive and flexible.  If the parent welcomes your feedback, what will you do to support and extend the opportunity for improvement?  If the parent is unclear of the benefits of your suggestion, how will you provide more information in a way it might be best understood?  If the parent shows resistance, what will you do to understand the source of the resistance?  Are there other paths the parent might prefer on the way to improvement? 

Each of the 6 steps we will be discussing in this series are complementary.  The more of the 6 steps you employ, the more likely your feedback will accepted, used and produce benefit. 

What do you do to be interactive and flexible when giving a parent feedback?