Learnings on Influencing and Leading From Parenting a 1-year-old
Posted on March 21, 2022
by Pianpian Xu Guthrie, founder of Amotions, Inc.
Parenting a 16-month-old who has his preferences and personality, who can run and say some words but cannot talk fully yet takes a lot of skills. It has introduced a lot of learnings, some of which can be applied to influencing and leading in general, even in the context of interacting with adults. It's a good reminder of human nature. It's a continuous learning process to figure out how to cultivate the best environment for a young child to develop and expand his potential.
Pay attention to body language, facial expressions, voice, and tones to understand someone.
My 16-month-old cannot fully talk yet, but he can point and use voice and tones to try to communicate. We need to pay close attention to these signals and guess what he is trying to express. We need to ask questions and sometimes show items to confirm with him "Do you want water?" "You want me to go over there to play with you?" We don't assume. The ability to perceive emotions is very important here.
2. When strong emotions are shown, understand the causes and help someone voice his/her feelings.
Young kids don't hide their emotions. You can watch and see their facial expressions change if they start to get sad, scared, or upset. Tears and crying are signals too. So are smiles and laughter. Empathy is the key here. If a child is sad or upset, it’s helpful to try to understand why, and ask questions to confirm the causes, for example, “Are you upset because mama put away the apple?”, besides trying to comfort the child.
3. Lead and influence by examples. Children watch what you do closely and like to imitate.
My 16-month-old watches us closely and likes to imitate us. That means if we want him to help put away his shoes, we need to put away our shoes first, show him how and where to put away his, then politely ask him to put away his shoes. If we want him to be warm, we need to be warm ourselves, and he will learn to hug us and other people he likes. He learns fast.
4. Find the positives and praise as often as possible.
Even young children understand and can feel it when you praise them, and it can become positive reinforcement. It’s easy to lose patience and get bothered by the food thrown on the floor or other messes, but positive praise works wonders. It’s important to recognize the good things that young children do and praise them as often as we can. It cultivates psychological safety. On the opposite, if someone faces constant criticism, it reduces psychological safety.
5. Tap into someone's inner motivation and influence. Don't force someone to do something.
It’s easier to get a young child to do something if we tap into his or her own motivations than forcing him/her to do something. When interacting with a young kid with a strong will, forcing him to do something will result in crying or frustration. However, if we can find out what motivates him, for example, he wants to go outside to play, but it’s raining, then we can show him how to dance indoors with fun music and entertain him.
6. Have fun together.
Things we take for granted can be fun and funny for young children, even saying H, shaking a blanket, and blowing on food. Take a minute to enjoy the birds flying outside the window, play with water in the bathtub, play peek-a-boo behind a curtain, and enjoy some laughter together.
7. Give timely feedback in an appropriate way.
We need to give timely feedback to young children to help them understand what’s safe and what’s dangerous. We need to explain why we don’t want him or her to get close to something, say the reason in a calm way, or use voice and tones to convey seriousness.
8. Take time to take care of ourselves.
With work and childcare responsibilities, it's easy to forgo time for ourselves to recharge. However, it's very important for us to take time to take care of ourselves. Have you noticed young children are more cranky when they are tired or don’t have a long enough nap? When we are tired and stressed out, we are more likely to get upset and affect interactions with others, and it will affect our well-being long term. Even just taking 5 minutes to do a quick meditation, 15 minutes for a quick run, dance, or a relaxing bath, will still help. Check out other resources and tips we have.
9. Get social support.
Support from family and friends, neighbors, and fellow parents of young kids can be helpful. Join a supportive community on Amotions to share with other users and support each other.
10. Learn together.
There are a lot of things we can learn from young children. A sense of wonder and curiosity, wowing at and noticing things that we have taken for granted - holiday lights, flowers, birds, fallen leaves. Caring - hugging others, hugging stuffed animals. Humor - do silly things and laugh together, running in circles, dancing, trying kung fu. If we take a moment out of busy schedules to enjoy what we have in life like young children, we will feel a lot happier and more grateful.
Amotions AI is a Silicon Valley based startup building an emotionally intelligent teammate embedded in sales calls. We provide live coaching in-call and post-call, and tailored AI role play, while answering technical questions. We boost win rates and cut ramp time, starting with sales and expanding to other use cases. https://www.amotions.ai
Related resources: pricing, FAQ, and AI sales coaching solutions.
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