I was in a parking garage with my wife.

I was in a parking garage with my wife. It was the type of scene they write into sitcoms. A wildly predictable husband-wife schtick we’ve seen a million times.

Husband drives past one spot.

“There’s one”

Husband drives past two more.

“You just passed two.” No elevation or judgment, just observation.

I muttered, “There’s one down there, a little closer.” But there wasn’t. I idled to the end of the aisle. Stopped.

I inhaled silently and backed up a few paces. And picked the first space she pointed out. Just 2 minutes after she pointed it out.

“Ya know? In retrospect, this is really a nice spot. WIDE.” I said with knowing self-deprecation. She shook her head and grinned while getting out of the car.

And this scene is exactly adolescence. They want to drive, they want to do it their way and they may end up at a dead-end. But what happened in our car that morning, isn’t always what happens in our life with our 13 year olds.

Usually, we’re in the passenger seat, slamming on invisible brake pedals, yelling directions like an unhinged Gordon Ramsey as a Mapquest navigator, resisting the urge to jerk the wheel onto the shoulder. And they’re yelling back “I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING, DAD.”

But we can learn a lot from the parking garage. Because there were actually two useful relationship skills being used in that car that we can transfer to parenting

We’re learning to give feedback without being reactive. They’re learning to hear feedback without being reactive. And it's a skill that’s really never finished, my wife and I are still working on it after 21 years together.

It starts with the permission to fail. Mistakes have to be allowed in order to be instructive. But we can’t simply let them fail on repeat, but some days, we forgo the feedback simply because our kids haven’t mastered the ability to hear it without being reactive and it’s exhausting.

We have to learn to give feedback at the right time, in the right way.

First, we let them drive, when they get to the end of the aisle, let them turn around. “You want to try that again, could I help?”

And we ask about process. When we ask “what” and “when”, we’re focused on outcomes, and that skips the process. If we ask “why”, we’re talking about intention and a 12 year old may not be able to explain why they make mistakes.

So we focus on “How”. Because “how questions” may reveal what they can’t do, how questions may show where we can support, “how questions” get our kids to think about the small steps that lead to mastery, not just the mastery.

I’ll never be able to completely explain how I learned to navigate parking lots so poorly, but it’s a question worth asking.

This week

When they miss something, forget something, or fall down. Don’t react. Just ask “How do you think that happened?” and “How can we make sure it doesn't happen again?” They might shrug, but they heard the question and you can reply “Here’s how I’ll help.”