Adventures in Parenting

 Did the title catch your attention ?   It did catch mine. I clicked on the article. Almost, that is .  Until it dawned upon me that no one becomes a billionaire without obsessing about money. Surely, anyone who has obsessed about money to that degree, has severely neglected many other parts of their lives, likely, including parenting.  I don't need any parenting advice from a billionaire. Thank you.  The next door 'regular' family with well-mannered, well-adjusted, resilient kids will have more to teach me about parenting than a billionaire ever will. 

 Words have amazing power. Yes, that is a cliche. But sometimes, we realize it when someone else points it out to us. I was recently working with a coach, and after listening to me for a while, he said " Karthik, I had asked you about what you want, and instead you told me about quite a few things that you don't want. "   Now, the idea of focussing on what we want and not what we don't want , isn't new to me, but I wasn't aware of this tendency of mine.  But now, that I became of it, I could see a lot more clearly that there are a million applications for it in the context of parenting ( and all relationships ) .  Instead of saying "Don't yell", I now try to say "Speak softly" Instead of saying "Don't spill the food", I now try to say "Pay attention to your plate while eating".  My 4 year old becomes 'defensive', when we verbalize what we don't want. Both my wife and me are trying to change our langua...