Happy New Year from Julian Consulting!

I just want to pen a brief note of thanks to all of you who have made 2010 a great year for Julian Consulting!

I’ve treasured the opportunities to serve you in a variety of contexts and look forward to partnering together in 2011.  That partnership may take a number of forms:

• Your reading and commenting on this blog
• My serving you and your team in helping to promote your professional and personal success
• Effective Family Communication seminars and family events
• Our continuing friendship and deepening appreciation for one another

Some of you I will never meet, but I appreciate you.  We may be interconnected only through pixels and information pipelines, but that doesn’t make the encouragement that comes from the exchange of ideas and information any less real.

May you be blessed as you are a blessing to others!  In 2011, my continuing hope for each of us is that we are becoming the people we were created to be, people who are learning to communicate effectively.

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Traditions–Preserving Old Ones, Starting New Ones

I remember seeing Fiddler on the Roof when I was a child.  I can still recall a number of the songs and can hear “Tradition!” ringing in my mind.

Here are a few of our family Christmas traditions:

• We sit in church as a family on Christmas Eve (normal Sunday services find us spread throughout the sanctuary)
• My Dad suggests that we each open just one gift on Christmas Eve – he always suggests, we never do – it’s tradition
• We open all of our gifts one individual at a time from youngest to oldest on Christmas morning

There are community traditions, family traditions, individual traditions.  An example of the last is that I always tell Judy to “order whatever you like” when we go on a dinner date.  Never mind that I know she will order what she wants, it’s just a tradition from our days of counting pennies to let her know that I want her to enjoy the evening and not worry about the cost.

This Christmas we went to our church’s Travelers’ Eve service on December 23.  Although we weren’t traveling, we spent Christmas Eve at a homeless shelter helping serve dinner to about 350 people.  We came home from that experience reminded of just how blessed we are.  Sometimes it’s good to buck tradition, maybe starting a new one.

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Speaking “toddler”–a language I’ve struggled to master

Years ago I sat in a McDonald’s and watched a mother and son have a meaningful conversation.  Unremarkable except that the child was probably 3 or 4 years old.  I remember thinking at the time: “How can an adult converse so effectively with a young child?”  I had three young children and felt I was often speaking over their heads (probably literally as well as figuratively).  Here I watched a mother speak in simple, concrete terms that her child understood and to which he was able, even invited, to respond.

So for all of you out there who communicate effectively with toddlers and pre-schoolers, I want to say just how impressed with your ability I remain.

Much of this blog deals with communication between spouses and among family members, but given my own strengths and interests, the topics tend to deal with children who are upper elementary school and older.  I’ll try to slip in some tips periodically for those of you with younger children in the hopes of keeping you on board.  If you want to share some insights that you think would be good for others, please drop me a line at stephen@julianconsulting.org – I’m always willing to learn.

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Exaggerating versus lying–it’s all about intent

In response to my recent post, “Parents’ Guide to Understanding Your Kids: Tip #2 – People Tell Stories for Different Reasons,” Denise asked: “How do you handle your 14-year old hanging out at the fast food restaurant at 10:30 PM when he said he was at his friends’ house because he was there for 5 minutes when he went to pick them up before hanging out in the street?  When challenged, your child responds: ‘And besides, Dad, you stretch the truth with your stories and you don't recognize that there is something wrong with that.’”

Great question.

Intuitively telling a story and being dishonest are separated by intent.  Let’s start with what it means to lie to someone.  If I intend to deceive you then I am speaking dishonestly whether what I say is true or false.  If you ask, “Is it sunny outside?” and I respond, “No,” believing that it is sunny and intending to deceive you, then I have spoken dishonestly even if it is actually raining.

Now intentions are difficult to discern – I have trouble knowing my own true intentions at times.  But children can understand that exaggerating for the point of emphasis and intending to deceive are not the same.  I would question my 14-year old as to what he intended for me to believe as a result of what he said.  Did he simply neglect to mention that most of the evening was spent at the fast food restaurant or was he intending to deceive me by speaking in a way that while technically true was intentionally misleading?

Trust that helps – writing this makes me think of some clarifying conversations I need to have with my own children.

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