As parents (and teachers), you try to help solve problems, both big and small. Very often, you think you know what the solution is, so you offer your idea — or a whole slew of ideas. Yet sometimes offering solutions simply fuels the anxiety or stubbornness that your kids or students are feeling, just as occurred with the boy in ski school. If you instead listen patiently and silently to their concerns and complaints, and then ask how you can help, it changes the conversation. It usually causes my own kids to pause. They think about whether I can actually help them and, if so, how. More often than not, they eventually tell me that I can’t really do anything. But in saying this they are already starting to figure out the problem for themselves. What they most needed to do was vent, get some sympathy, and figure out a solution for themselves.

Counselor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if I could ask you to clarify a point.

Wait, what?” is at the root of all understanding. “I wonder . . . ?” is at the heart of all curiosity. “Couldn’t we at least . . . ?” is the beginning of all progress. “How can I help?” is at the base of all good relationships. And “What truly matters?” helps get you to the heart of life.