3 parenting skills that also make you better in your work
I'm here to talk about skills that we can use to be great parents and great partners, but they can also really significantly help us in our work. How on earth is that even possible? Shouldn't they be separate? But they're actually not. (Find this video on Facebook).
Top 3 skills of a value-driven professional
Three of the top skills of a value driven professional—a person who excels in their workplace—are: they know how to de escalate drama; they know how to accept feedback as a gift; and they know the right way to engage in conflict (according to Donald Miller in his book Business Made Simple). And you know what? Those are skills that I teach in my coaching and in my Gottman Bringing Baby Home classes. They're also skills that make for a great parent and that help us to have a more peaceful, nurturing postpartum period.
Challenges during postpartum
When you have a new baby at home, you're tired. Whoever just gave birth is recovering from labor. And babies have itty bitty tummies. Even though they sleep a lot during the day, they wake frequently to eat. They sleep in little tiny chunks that are not compatible with the way that an adult needs to sleep. And all these things make us grumpier. The research shows that two thirds of couples experience a significant increase in hostility when a baby is born, and that's just not okay. I don't know about you but in my family, all of my parents' generation ended up eventually divorcing, at least once. And I don't want that to happen to our generation. I want to do something about that.
How can the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program help?
In order to protect and nurture our relationships from the stress and sleep deprivation of early childhood, I teach the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program and I also do coaching to provide accountability for implementing the strategies in your family. I'm not a counselor; I'm not a therapist--but my coaching can provide accountability to help us implement the strategies that we learn. You can do this postpartum, but of course I suggest to do it during the second trimester of pregnancy, because you can think more clearly before the baby is born, generally speaking. When we put in the time and effort to focus on learning to de-escalate drama, to accept feedback as a gift, and to know the right way to engage conflict, it can really impact parenting; it can impact the baby's development; it impacts the longevity of our relationship; and these things can impact us in our work.
The power of a family meeting
One of the key strategies that we can use around de-escalating drama and handling conflict is the idea of having a family meeting. What a family meeting does is that it provides a safe, consistent space to talk about what we need and to talk about the challenges that we're facing, so that we can better understand each other and get our needs met. Why is it so important? Well the problem is that if we don't have a time set aside to talk about our needs and to talk about how things are going for us, then what often happens is that we tend to bring up our needs in a critical way, in a drama filled way. This is what the Gottman Institute calls a negative bid. So, if we have a separate family meeting and something's bugging us, I can say to myself, “That really bugs me but right now is not a good time.” I can calm myself down, and then at our family meeting I can bring it up: "When you said this, that really frustrated me", or "when you did that it really bothered me. Here's what I need." I can do it in a productive way, using the tools that I've learned--versus if I talk about my needs only in the moment, then I'm going to be nasty to my partner. I'm going to say you're a jerk. It's not gonna be healthy if we only are talking about conflict when it comes up in the moment. If we have time set aside, then we can use our tools. We can talk about conflict in a healthy way.
How does this make a difference?
This is making us a more valuable professional in a variety of ways:
The tools that are learned in my classes and my coaching are tools that can be applied in the workplace. I have often heard from my clients that they have been able to use the skills that they learned in my classes at work. There were situations of conflict and drama that came up, and they used the skills I taught them in their job.
The other benefit is that these tools are protecting and nurturing our relationship. And so, it's benefiting our partner. Our needs are more likely to get met, and our partner's needs are more likely to get met. That influences our overall stress level. We have a lower chance of experiencing severe perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. So we can think clearer and be more productive in our work. In the stress chapter of his book Brain Rules, John Medina talks about the idea that our stress at work often seeps into our family life, and that our family life stress often seeps into our work life. And clearly, that's what we don't want to do. And so if we take time during the prenatal period to learn skills to de-escalate drama, to accept feedback, and to learn to manage conflict, we're improving our baby's development, our own health, our marriage and relationship health. And by doing that, we're reducing the stress that goes back into our work life. So, how cool is that.
It also influences the baby. The research shows that babies whose parents who took the Gottman Bringing Baby Home program cried less and smiled more than the babies of parents who didn't take the class. And so, those babies are happier. And in fact, they develop language faster. Babies are an emotional sponge. When our marriages are happier and we have those skills to know how to de-escalate drama, to accept feedback as a gift, and to know the right way to engage in conflict, our babies are calmer, they're more able to learn. And they're crying less because they're not frustrated and overstimulated by our stress as much. Parents who take the class are less likely to experience severe symptoms of baby blues, and our babies benefit.
Let’s get started
To learn skills that help us to improve our work, protect our marriage, and have a calmer baby, let’s schedule a chat!
