I recently re-read the book Dare to Lead by Brené Brown for our Reflective Parenting Book Club and there is a quote that I felt we needed to reflect on as parents:
“I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
This is a book about leadership in the workplace but I can’t help but think about how most of what I read applies to parents. This is why it is the book I am reflecting on this month on the Reflective Parenting Podcast as well as inside our book club. Here is a sneak peak into my thoughts and reflections.
At work: skill building
Think about how a good leader responds when someone on their team is struggling. For instance, if an employee has a hard time leading meetings, analyzing data, or talking to clients, a good manager doesn’t march them out the door. They ask a different question: what training or support does this person need? Maybe that means signing them up for a course or pairing them with a member of their team who’s strong in that area. Perhaps it means sitting down and teaching the skill yourself, because as the leader, you’re the expert. Either way, the instinct is the same: struggle signals a skill gap, not a character flaw.
With this skill gap comes the true strength of a leader…find that person’s potential. Sports coaches come to mind as well. You have a player that plays forward in soccer but they don’t run fast. So you study them and see what they are good at. You realize they are great at blocking the ball so you double down on helping them practice this. You put them in a defensive position. THIS is what true leadership is.
At home: behavioural issues and character flaws
I don’t think we are doing this enough for our kids. I think we are too quick to label it as a behavioural problem or character flaw.
If our child falls apart every time we leave the park, we often call it a tantrum. If we look closer it’s really a struggle with disappointment and transitions. If siblings are arguing constantly, it’s tempting to label one of them “difficult.” But underneath, it’s often a gap in social skills. If a child can’t stick to a routine or keeps losing track of school projects, we might call them lazy or scattered. In reality, they’re likely still developing executive function — one of the last skills to mature in the developing brain. We wouldn’t fire a struggling employee on day one. So why do we so quickly file our kids’ struggles under “misbehaviour” instead of asking what skill they still need help building and helping them find their potential.
How the research backs this up
A study published in Infants & Young Children looked at preschoolers and found a significant relationship between teacher-reported challenging behaviour and deficits in executive function — the skills involved in attention, flexibility, and self-control. In other words, the kids acting out the most were often the kids whose underlying regulation skills hadn’t caught up yet.
Similarly, a study in PeerJ on children referred for behavioural concerns found that prosocial skills — things like cooperating, sharing, and reading social cues — significantly moderated how much peer conflict showed up for kids with conduct-related symptoms. Kids with stronger prosocial skills had fewer peer problems, even when other risk factors were present, which points to skill-building as a lever that actually moves the needle. Put together, the research points the same direction our workplaces already assume: what looks like misbehaviour is very often a lagging skill, still under construction.
How we can be more mindful of this as parents
Experts tell us that behaviour is communication…and it’s true. But I think it can be hard as parents to see this challenging behaviour as “communication” when we are usually flooded or stressed. Most of us never learned how to cope with emotions or stress, and this skill gap really stands out when we become a parent. When we are flooded or as I like to say “at the top of our mountain” our brain isn’t thinking as clearly as it should and our automatic, reactive patterns come out more easily (learn more about this perspective in my Tedx talk here).
Learning how to notice your own flooding or emotional dysregulation sooner is a skill that takes time to develop. We have a course and a 6-week cohort to help parents with this. It is also exactly the kind of thing we dig into together in the Reflective Parenting Book Club. It isn’t just about books, it’s about scientific articles and reflecting as a community of parents that want to grow and connect.
Here is a question we can start asking ourselves when our child struggles with their behaviour: “What skill can my child learn that would make this moment easier for them”. Take a moment to step back this week and notice which of your child’s behaviours you quickly label as misbehaviour or a character flaw rather than a skill gap. Then, think like a leader. Take responsibility to help your child find and develop their potential through skill building and support you offer them. Remember that new skills take time to practice! Give it a few months before you deem your efforts a failure.
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