Our ability to parent powerfully is dependent on our ability to create a space where fear is eliminated in our relationship with our kids and help them to learn from their circumstances.

1. Training Up Dragons
of Life!
Powerful Parenting for World
Changers

2. Agenda
➔Welcome
➔Review of Our Ground Rules
➔Check In
➔Experiencing Our Situations
◆ Our Role
◆ Beautiful Questions
◆ Practice Makes Perfect
◆ Engage & Express
Sessions 3-Experiencing our
Situations Through Powerful
Questions

3. ● Keep Confidentiality.
(What’s said here stays here.)
● No Judgement
● Let someone finish their thought
(don’t talk over each other)
● No Yelling. No Criticism
● Honor each other, Accept each other
● No Fixing
● No Advice unless it is asked for
● Tell only your own story
● Be listening hearts with empathy and
compassion

4. Course Overview
Where There Is No Vision
Learning to Encounter by Listening
Learning to Experience by Asking
Questions
Learning to Engage by Making
Decisions
Learning to Express by Supporting

5. Here and Now
Check-in
What’s been going on in the last
month?
Five minutes to share your family
life joys and challenges in last
month
Share your Upset Resolution
Chart

6. Experience
The primary goal is to help our kids
learn for themselves by asking
questions as they walk through the
situation.Directly living through a
situation as a basis of
knowledge.

7. Our Current Paradigm for Experiencing
You child comes home with the following
grades:
Algebra A
History A
English F
Science C
Which grade did your parents focus on?
75%
Of parents stated they would focus on the F

8. Dualistic
Thinking
Leads to Death of Possibilities
➔ Either/or
◆ This is good, that is bad
◆ I am right, you are wrong
◆ All or nothing
➔ Focus on weaknesses,
problems, what’s wrong
➔ Focus on overcoming

9. Time for a Paradigm Shift

10. Holistic
Thinking
Leads to Life-More Possibilities
➔Being present to the situation
with no value judgment.
◆ Reduce fear, increase love
➔Focus on strengths, options,
and solutions.
➔Focus on being and becoming
and what brings life.

11. Our Role
As Parent (Coach)
➔Acceptance
◆ Unique and Distinct Individuals
◆ We Are Where We Are
● Offense & Forgiveness
➔Believe In Them
➔Problem or Opportunity?
➔Whose Is it? Ownership
➔Get Curious
◆ Where could we be?
◆ What are all the possibilities?
Beginner’s Mind/No Value
Judgments

12. Experiencing
our Kids
Being Present to Our Stuff
◆ Assess the situation
● Upset Resolution Chart
● Own Your Stuff
➔ Experience
◆ Offense & Forgiveness-Release
them from your judgment
◆ Options
➔Engage
◆ What are YOU going to do?
➔Express
◆ How will you lower anxiety, and
increase love so their best can

13. Recent Situation
Learning to Process the Upset
for Ourselves First
Encounter
➔ Describe the situation you are facing.
➔ What could you learn about yourself from this
situation? Why is this upsetting to you?
➔ How might your actions have contributed to
the situation?
➔ What could change about you that would make
things better?
Experience
➔ If you had no limitations, what are the options
available to resolve this and their possible
outcomes?
➔ Put yourself in your kid’s shoes, what can you
see from their perspective?
Engage
➔ What is the best possible outcome?
➔ How will you get there?
Express
➔ What are you going to do? Do it!

15. Beautiful Questions
Provoke ~ Reveal ~ Motivate ~ Activate

16. Our Transformation Model & Beautiful
Questions
Encounter-Provoking Questions-Where
are we now? No judgment! Safe space.
➔ Open/Probing
◆ Questions that let the individual lead by
allowing them to answer in any way they
choose
➔ Asking Permission
◆ Opens the door to entering a new area or
broaching a sensitive subject.

17. Our Transformation Model & Beautiful
Questions
Experience-Revealing Questions. Where
could we be? What’s going on in your
heart?
➔ Revealing Questions
◆ Questions that change viewpoint or help
get out of a box and think creatively.
➔ Ownership Questions
◆ Questions that focus on taking
responsibility and being proactive in order
to make things better.
➔ Direct Questions
◆ Questions that cut to the heart of the issue

18. Our Transformation Model & Beautiful
Questions
Engage-Motivate. Where will we go?
➔ Choosing an Agenda
◆ What to ask when starting a new change
goal.
➔ Decision Making Questions
◆ Questions to ask in a decision making
process.

19. Our Transformation Model & Beautiful
Questions
Express-Activate. What are we going to
do? Do it!
➔ Taking Action
◆ Questions that turn ideas into committed
action steps
➔ Life Purpose
◆ Questions that help people identify and
pursue their purpose.

20. Encounter
Goal is to create a space that the
individual feels safe and accepted
exactly as they are, where they are.
Decrease fear, increase love, so that
the best in them can be provoked.
➔Acceptance
◆ I am not you. You are not me.
◆ We are where we are
➔Let go of offense, forgive.
➔Believe in them!
Beautiful Questions to Provoke

21. Open/Probing vs
Closed Questions
Surface vs Getting to the Heart
Closed Questions-Can only be
answered with “yes” or “no.”
Open Questions-Questions that
can’t be answered with a “yes” or
“no” and allow the individual to
answer in whatever way they want.

22. Converting Closed Questions
Closed
➔ Did the call to your uncle go well?
➔ Did that make you feel hurt?
➔ Do you want to take action on this option?
➔ Could you talk to someone about that?
➔ Is there a timeline for that project?
➔ Will that take long?
Open
➔ How did the call to your uncle go?
➔ How did that make you feel?
➔ What do you want to do about this?
➔ Who could you talk to about that?
➔ When do you want to finish this?
➔ How long will that take?

23. Open vs Closed
Questions
Role Play
➔Speaker-share a challenge
➔Listener-ask only closed
questions. (Yes or No answers)
➔Reverse, only this time Listener
ask only open questions?

24. No Solution-Oriented Questions
Solution Oriented Questions
➔ Closed Question
➔ Proposing a solution in the form of a
question.
➔ It asks for agreement with a proposition-
would you, could you, shouldn’t you.
➔ Subtract a few words from the front and
you get a statement.
Examples
➔ Could you find that information on the
Internet?
➔ How about if you took a class in that?
➔ Would it work if you gave both options and
let her choose?

25. Replacing Solution-Oriented Questions with
Open Questions
Solution-Oriented Questions
➔ Have you thought about sending her a
card or some flowers to get back on her
good side?
➔ Would it work to take a day off and finish
your homework?
➔ Couldn’t you sell your Playstation and be
done with it?
➔ If you'd take a continuing ed class, would
that get you started?
Open Questions
➔ What could you do to get back on her
good side?
➔ What would help you get your homework
finished?
➔ What do you think the solution is with your
Playstation?
➔ What’s the best way to get moving toward
this goal?

26. Crafting Beautiful Open/Probing Questions
Goal
To help the individual fully explore, extend
their thinking, and gather information on a
given situation.
Basic strategy-Listen for the most important
thing the individual is saying (emotions are
good clues), then ask the individual a question
that asks them to expand on that point.
Observation + Question
Characteristics
➔ Use the individual’s own words.
◆ Don’t paraphrase, inserting your own
thoughts
➔ Are succinct
➔ Are neutral

27. Beautiful
Probing
Questions
Scenario 1-The individual says, “I wish I could
go to school and get something out of it. This
drudgery is killing me.”
➔ “You said the drudgery at school is killing you. What
at school feels like drudgery?” Or, “You said you
wished you could get something out of school. Tell
me some things you like and don’t like about
school.
Scenario 2-”It’s been a difficult week. I guess
I’ll just have to push through the
disappointment again.”
➔ “You mentioned that it’s been a difficult week.
What made it difficult?” Or, “You talked about
pushing through your disappointment again. Say
more about what’s going on there.”
Observation + Question

28. Beautiful Open/Probing Questions-Examples
➔ Tell me a little more about that.
➔ What do you think led up to this situation?
➔ When you think about that situation, what
kind of feelings do you have?
➔ You mentioned that….Say more about
that.
➔ When you said...what did you mean?
➔ What was most significant to you in this
situation?

29. Practicing Beautiful
Probing Questions
Speaker-Share a challenge you are
facing.
Listener-Use the observation and
question technique through the
whole conversation.
Switch roles and repeat.
Debrief

30. Using Our Model to Ask Beautiful Questions
Encounter Probing, Open, Ownership Questions
➔ Where are we now?
◆ Describe the problem you are facing.
◆ Give me some background-what led up to
this situation?
◆ How might your actions have contributed
to the situation?
◆ What’s most important for us to focus on?
◆ Since we can’t change the other person,
what could change about you that would
make things better?
◆ Let’s say this is an opportunity to learn or
grow something in you. What do you think
that something could be?

31. Using Our Model to Ask Beautiful Questions
Experience Revealing, Permission Questions
➔ Where could we be?
◆ What are all the options available to you?
◆ What are all the different possible
outcomes?
◆ If you removed that limitation, then what
would you do?
◆ If money, time resources, energy wasn’t an
issue, what would you do?
◆ What worked for you in similar situations
in the past?
◆ Put yourself in the other person’s shoes-
what can you see from their perspective?
◆ What would be the best possible
outcome?

32. Engage &
Express
What was one “take away” from
today’s session?
What’s one concrete action you
will take to live it out?
Declare it! “I will…”