Not your usual training course

I went on an excellent training course a few weeks ago. It was not a regular skill building one, but one, I would argue, that is a game changer in terms of behaviour. (Apologies for the corporate speak, but I couldn't think of a better descriptor)

It was a program that focussed on you as an individual and your role as a professional and family member. It concentrated on habits and managing self and boundaries. It talked about ritualizing change and incorporatimg a healthy lifestyle. It not only offered participants, a personalized training program after a 90 minute assessment, but during the actual course we did the physical training twice. In the breaks we drank soya shakes and ate raw veggies, there were no choc chip cookies at this place, just home made musli bars.

However, the best part was about our habits at home. How do our children and spouses see us. How do we use our energy.

One of the pre work assignments was to interview our children. They needed to be at least age 5 but even the little ones could contribute. Here were the questions.

1. What do you like the most in me as your mother? What do you think are my best sides?
2. When I am at home before and after work, do you think we spend enough time together?
3. When spending time together, for example, when we are playing or talking to each other, do you think something can be done better? What
4. Do you think I give you the right things? I don't mean material things like toys, rather the things that you can feel.
5. If you had a wish towards me, that would make me a better mother or us a better family, what would it be?

I tell you, such simple questions offer big answers. One of my favourite insights was that my kids thought I spent enough time with them. This was a wonderful outcome as I would have guessed, that with the travel and the long hours that I put in at work, they would have been very critical of my lack of presence, yet they were not. My 9 year replied to question 2, very simply. "Yes we do spend enough time together and I like that." Arrhh, how wonderful little girls are.

Following the same process, with similar questions, to my husband, I learned that the thing that bothered him most was not that I often use my blackberry, but that I do it right in front of him and the kids at breakfast time. He proposed that I just go somewhere they can't see me. How easy that was to implement but clearly how unaware I was that this was annoying.

So I suggest to anyone to have a go with these questions. I was nervous but I got a lot out of it, in fact I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was being a little too hard on myself.  And with a little tweak here and there, my average mother status could get boosted to possibly slightly above average.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!