In the trainings we offer, we are very interested in helping adults have success at influencing young people and to do so in fun, easy ways.  One of the most challenging aspects of parenting, or even coaching young people is their changing reactions to questions as they move towards and into their teens.  The simple "How was your day?" question which once started sharing about all the things that happened, and usually more than we want to know, is reduced to "fine", or "okay".  As young people move towards their own private identity, the goal of these responses is to shut us down and keep us out of their business, and it works.  If we press, we begin to feel rude, as they have answered our question, and they certainly think we are being rude.

While it really won't work very often for the "how was your day?" question I find we can get much more information by using "implied" questions.  Implied questions are statements about your own inner state of curiousity which invites someone to help you fulfill your need for information.  For example: "I wonder what you would think about ............" If this is delivered with a tone of voice that communicates pondering, then it will often get a response.  Another form is "I am curious about........."  You notice that both of these sentence forms are statements, and it is important to end the statement with a question tonality at the end.  It works best to just lay it out there as a statement to the universe about your state of mind.

Some others I have used are:

• I am really curious about what you will do for a living when you are older.
• I have been thinking a lot about whether or not you will want to go to college.
• Sometimes I just think about the type of person you will fall for.
• I think it will be interesting to see how you decorate your own home.
• I would like to know what you think about your teachers.
• I wonder which of your subjects is easiest, and which ones challenge you.

The form of the implied statement is an "I statement" about what is in your mind, which invites a comment from others.  One of the most powerful aspects of this approach is that it leads the listener to think about what you have shared, even if they don't respond.  The earlier statements lead the listener to think about his or her future, and the teachers and subjects.

The implied question can also be very influential when paired with references to the bond you have with someone else, or to a strength of the person.  For example:

• I wonder sometimes if you have any idea how great you are.
• I wonder when you will realize that you are liked by a lot of people.
• I don't think you know how much you are loved.  
• I don't think you get how good you are at .............

Now that I have shared this, I wonder how often you will think about how to use implied questions to open up dialogue with others.

I was very blessed early in my career to work with H. Stephen Glenn, and one of the most important things he taught me was the "EIAG Process".  He pointed out that an individual's perception is the key to their attitudes, motivation, and behavior.  Therefore, in order to deal with any behavior, it was important to understand the belief behind any behavior.  Also, if you wanted people to learn and apply, the teaching and learning process needed to tie content to someone's existing perceptions.  To do that, he taught the EIAG Process.

The process works fairly simply.  The first thing that occurs is any experience that has potential for learning.  It can be a lesson in a classroom, or it can be any situation that occurs and is followed by a conversation.  So the E in the EIAG process is Experience.

Once the experience is occurring and/or has occurred, you tie the experience to perception by first asking questions that challenge a listener to "Identify" those aspects of the experience which are important to him or her.  These are "What questions" like:

• What happened?
• What are you feeling?
• What did you see?
• What was important?

These questions help connect with the experience and identify the impact.

After this, the next goal is to help the person "Analyze" the significance of the experiences he or she has just identified.   To to this, you would ask "What" and "Why" questions like:

• Why was that significant?
• What caused that to happen?
• What is meaningful about it?
• What made that important?

These questions further build a perception of meaning in the moment about the experience.  However, people, especially young people often have trouble generalizing and applying learning across contexts.  In order to help with that, we ask "Generalizing questions" like:

• How can you use this?
• How is this valuable to you?
• In what way will this affect what you do in the future?
• What wisdom did you gain from this?
• What did you learn from this whole thing?

So, at the end of the process, we have helped someone identify what happened that might be useful or significant for them, helped them analyze the specific usefulness or significance, and invited them to think about how this learning would be usefule on a more global scale.  I invite you to try this with any of your students, children, or anyone else in your environment.  It does work. 

I have been reading Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation: How to Harness the Power of Hypnosis to Ignite Effortless and Lasting Change. While I have always realized Richard Bandler was a genius, I have usually found books difficult to read.  This one, while it still has some challenges, has some gems that have really led me to pause and think about the work we do with children and others whose lives have been affected by trauma.

The most powerful possesion that most people have are their beliefs.  Many of us really can't even tell the difference between our beliefs and reality, because we filter reality through our beliefs.  Our beliefs tell us what we, and others, can and can't do.  I titled this post the Power(s) of Believing because believing has both incredibly powerful positive and negative potential.

For a number of years now, the research has indicated that the experience of trauma, especially repetitive trauma creates lasting changes in the brain.  Taken at a surface level, this could be very discouraging to those who want to help children and others who have been abused and neglected.  If someone's brain has been changed, then what can be done.  I have seen this research lead people to just accept and accommodate to the problems caused by trauma, rather than work to heal the effects.  They have read the research and developed limiting beliefs, beliefs that people can't be helped.

Henry Ford once said "Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right..."  This is a very applicable statement for working with trauma survivors.  The power of believing we can't make a difference makes an incredible difference, in a negative direction.  There are many ways the lives of trauma survivors can be improved when those around them believe in their potentials.

The power of believing we can make a difference is even more powerful.  Trauma effects the brain, making measurable changes in brain function.  So does meditation, Tai Chi, being held, and any number of other experiences we can make available to a growing child, or even an adult client.  We need to be careful to read the research, know what the effects of trauma are, then work diligently to prove that those effects can be largely healed.  I have done this successfully, but haven't had the brain scans to prove it.

In my personal coaching work, I find that young people often benefit most.  The earlier you can focus on your dreams and goals, clarify them and begin creating the life you want, the greater your chances for having a meaningful life.  Of course, the younger you are, the more challenging it is do do all those things.  The original dreams and goals we develop at 13, 16, or 19 will evolve and change based on our life experience.  

Last Friday, I was listening to a taped presentation of H. Stephen Glenn, and he made the point that prior to 1955, the word Teenager didn't appear in our language.  Teenagers as a class of being was created as a side effect of the Baby Boom, and having such an large contingency of young people in the 13-19 age range.  This led to social scientists studying them, and the label teenager.  

Last Friday, I was listening to a taped presentation of H. Stephen Glenn, and he made the point that prior to 1955, the word Teenager didn't appear in our language.  Teenagers as a class of being was created as a side effect of the Baby Boom, and having such an large contingency of young people in the 13-19 age range.  This led to social scientists studying them, and the label teenager.  

"To state a theorem and then to show examples of it is literally to teach backwards."  (E. Kim Nebeuts)

I have constantly felt, and often stated, that one of the greatest gifts of my life was to have H. Stephen Glenn as my first boss.  He was the developer of "Developing Capable Young People", one of my favorite training programs which was taught in fourteen countries. (http://www.capabilitiesinc.com/)

Steve taught me how to think about working with youth, and, for that matter, adults.  One of the tools he used to coach me, and taught to others was the "EIAG" process.  This process facilitates Inductive Learning.  This involves the process of learning by example -- where a system tries to induce a general rule from a set of observed instances. It also involves classification -- assigning, to a particular input, the name of a class to which it belongs. Classification is important to many problem solving tasks.

By responding to most experiences through a process of questioning which allows young people to draw conclusions and generalizations from those experiences is the easiest, most efficient way of creating learners that I know.  Steve often said our goal is not to teach, but rather to create learners.  Once people learn to learn, they can apply the skill anywhere.  Using the EIAG process frequently helps young people build in internal cognitive strategy for inductive learning and reasoning.  This is the process:

• Experience-either a naturally occurring experience, like a conflict with another or any daily experience, or an experience created in a learning environment.  Any experience, from role plays, lectures, simulations or group explorations can be the starting point of inductive learning.  I even use the process when discussing assessments, surveys, etc. with people.
• Identify-help the learner identify what was significant in the experience.  (What questions)
  • What did you like about it?
  • What didn't you like? 
  • What were three new things you might take away from the experience.
  • What was unique?
• Analyze-help the learner think critically about what they took away from the experience. (How questions)
  • How is what you liked about the experience useful to you?
  • How might even the things you didn't like have use if you think about it?
  • How might you use the three new things you identified in the experience?
  • How is that unique?
• Generalize-help the learner find potential applications in their lives for the what they have learned. (Where, when, and with whom questions)
  • Where might you apply what you have discovered from this?
  • When might that be useful?  
  • In what contexts will the new things you identified be useful?, In what relationships?
  • Who else in your life might benefit from what you have learned?

The lists of questions I have here are far from exhaustive, but I wanted to offer a process, and some example questions.  Play with it.  To learn more about this, and Developing Capable People, feel free to contact us.

Yesterday a friend of mine was relating a conversation she had about her son to some service professionals.  She was talking about how he did in school, and how funny she found him.  Then someone made a comment about how he sounds like he would be good actor or comedian.  It was then that my friend brought up that he was nonverbal and autistic.  She related how the whole energy of the conversation shifted.  The others went from sharing openly as mothers to complimenting her on adopting such a child.

The last few posts have offered a number  of suggested questions to ask young people in your life.  The last questions were "What is important about ______?" and "What will that do for you?".  In an attempt to stay consistent with my suggestions and avoid why, I am asking what is important about these questions.  What will it do for young people and yourself if you use them?