I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a parent, but one tactic I chanced on that seemed to work was to focus more on shaping future behavior than on denigrating present behavior. In a way I think it gave my kids the notion early on that their continued change and growth was a given. For example, I would always make them try a bite of a new food but if they said they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to eat it. But if there was something I expected them eventually to eat, like a salad, I would say, “Oh you don’t like that yet? You will when you’re older,” and then drop it. Then they would have the idea in their head and often decide to prove themselves older by proudly announcing that they wanted to try salad again, and now like it.
I think that’s a tactic we can use on ourselves, too. When you come to the point of recognizing that you must change something in your life that you know will be difficult to change, sometimes it helps simply to declare to yourself, “This is something I’m eventually going to have to change.” You can’t actually make the change until you fully commit to it— and you won’t know you’re there until you suddenly know you are there— but that’s a big step in getting there.
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