2806 Reynolda Road, # 211
Winston-Salem, NC 27106
(336) 499-1977
colleen@byersmediation.com
My four-year-old, Lainey, excitedly shared this drawing with me & declared,
“This is baby Lainey!”
I had no earthly idea what she was talking about.
So I used a communication tool called looping, where the confused listener (here, that was me) seeks clarity and understanding by asking an open ended question that incorporates some of the same words the speaker just used.
I said, “That’s baby Lainey?”
She said, “Yeah.” Although her tone implied this was obvious, she did not immediately offer any further insight or explanation to help her confused mother.
So I waited. I kept my mouth shut and sat in the uncomfortable silence.
The space I created allowed her the time and the opening to soon continue telling me,
“That’s baby Lainey before she was even born… in an egg.”
Got it. Now I have a much better understanding.
I could have immediately told her that she was wrong. That this depiction was not a drawing of a human infant, which is the definition I immediately attached to her use of the phrase, “baby Lainey.” Instead, I looped and I paused as I waited for her to offer me more about her perspective and to enlighten me to her different and equally valid definition of “baby Lainey.”
And that made all the difference.