How Lego can help you reconnect with your teens

There are times that as a mother/father you cannot find a healthy way to face challenges with your children, and you don't decide to share what happens to you because you think that it only happens to you.

I have been working for years with managers, entrepreneurs and professionals with high responsibility and professional dedication. In the first session I always suggest that you carry out a “radar” activity that allows you to identify how the important areas of your life are working.

It is an activity that makes it easier to observe the level of general balance. It also helps to make a brief diagnosis to see how and where we are putting our energy.

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The energy of managers

Many times, people with high professional responsibility devote most of their energy to work-related tasks. It is normal for it to be like this.

However, throughout these years and after many conversations, I have detected that some of the important problems that most condition the lives of these professionals are related to the family area.

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Intervening from the family environment

Time and energy are limited, and this often means that the family area does not receive all the necessary attention. The next step: criticize yourself and feel guilty for not doing better with your children.

When the children are young, it seems that this lack of dedication to the family is not transcendental; however, when the children reach a pre-adolescent age they begin to appear some indicators we should pay attention to.

Adolescence has a bad press. Socially, this stage is usually seen as a complicated period and on many occasions we speak of this period with prejudice. I am the father of a large family and I know very well what happens when children go through that stage of discovery, change, need for independence. Is a challenging stage for all family members and many questions appear for which we do not always have answers.

It is also true that those people with high professional dedication, after an exhausting day of work, do not they have the energy and clairvoyance necessary to face the challenges that arise in family life with children teenagers.

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time and energy

Making all areas of our lives compatible implies attention and dedication. If you do not find that time and do not pay the necessary attention, little by little it opens a gap in communication, presence, support. An increasing estrangement with the children that when they become adolescents that leads us to lose that wonderful bond that existed.

Some of my clients, when we investigate the subject, often ask me: “And now how do I do it? Now how do I get back to the starting point? What can I do to regain closeness, trust and proximity? Sometimes these questions appear many years later and the feeling of guilt invades us.

There are no magic recipes about it. The first and most important thing is to start devoting quality time that allows recover the proximity that brings us closer to communication. The next step is to encourage sincere listening that allows the deepest needs and the feeling of presence to surface. This can be learned and exercised.

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Why with Lego?

Lego pieces allow us open a channel of communication with the five senses, which promotes generous listening.

When we work intentionally with this methodology, mind and hands connect to build our thinking and to be able to explain it more clearly. Telling a story, telling my story, brings me closer to others and increases the level of understanding and empathy. Teenagers also love stories.

When I work in Family Coaching sessions with Lego pieces, we play in a guided way and we reach align family values and we gently identify the toxins that prevent good communication based on respect and trust.

Family Coaching with Lego is based on systemic coaching and, therefore, although the adolescent is the main protagonist and on whom the process is centered, work is also done with the parents as a fundamental part of the family system.

Expressing emotions cannot be prohibited in the family. Recognizing emotions, understanding what happens inside people, helping to manage different situations, is a task that as parents we should not delegate. Normalize and understand to improve relationships.

In family relationships, the most important thing is to strengthen ties to also enhance parental leadership and get our children to trust.

Trust and commitment just like in the company!