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.