Imagine that you are walking from one place to another. You must make this journey every day—maybe from home to work. One day, on the road between point A and point B, there’s a huge dog, snapping and snarling at you. The next day, the dog is there again. Each time you try to make this journey, the dog is there, cutting you off, keeping you from your destination.
What would you do?
My guess is that, pretty quickly, you would figure out a way to get to point B. You would find another route, you would distract the dog with a treat, you would threaten the dog, you would make friends with the dog, you would call in reinforcements to help you get past the dog. You would take some kind of action.
We face a different kind of dog in the road when we continue to communicate with people in our lives in the same old way, despite the fact that we can’t get to the outcome we are hoping for. If I lecture my kids when I’m frustrated, even though I know that lecturing them brings me farther from my goal of connection and understanding, I’m facing the dog in the road. Unlike our literal dog, though, we keep trying the old methods, louder, slower, angrier, but all a version of the same tactic.
What happens when we can choose a different strategy? What happens when we look past the dog to the destination, clear and shining on the other side, and focus on all the ways we can get there, rather than on the dog?
Maybe instead, when I see a “lecturing” situation looming, I can take stock. I can see that dog in the road. I can think “I want my child to feel supported and heard,” or “I want to offer my help in coming to a solution,” rather than “I want my child to know what they did wrong.” Now the dog is lying down, maybe rolling in the grass to the side of the road. It’s not an impediment.
