Posts in category: PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Are you an adult daughter of a dad you would like to grow closer to, not just on Father’s Day but every day during the year? Would you like to create an “unpressured” outcome where daughter and dad spend more meaningful time together in mutually enjoyed activities? Take a super bow, because the 100 questions below (when asked honorably and respectfully) will get dad and daughter talking tons.

A dad is not used to being asked personal questions that require thinking and disclosing of self. We love IT! BUT are you daughters out there sure you really want to know the truthful answers? Of course, I was just teasing, because I know you yearn to learn with and from dad.

ASKING DIRECTIVE QUESTIONS

I teach about the importance of asking “directive questions” in the Talk2Me© system. One of my esteemed communications clients developed the list below, a list she actually used with her dad. And now both of them are closer than ever before. It’s absolutely true!

Remember, you intent in this exercise is important. It’s to have a closer relationship with a dad instead of judging him as bad. Got it? Fasten your seat belt, because you are set to fly down the two-way communicator highway!
Here are the 100 self-disclosing questions that encourage dads to “get down to it” and talk openly about themselves for a change. Take time to ask just a few now and then and just see what greats results you attain!

1. How did you feel when you found out that you were going to be a father?
2. Were you present for the birth of your child?
3. How did you feel at the birth of your child or at the first sight of your child?
4. What were your concerns when you brought your child/children home?
5. What do you like about being a Dad?
6. What do you not like about being a Dad?
7. What do you wish for your child/children?
8. What do you feel your role is as a Dad?
9. What do you teach your children about love?
10. What is your advice about relationships?
11. What do you teach your children about money?
12. Describe your relationship with your father.
13. How much time did your father spend with you?
14. How often did your father tell you that he loved you?
15. What did your father teach you about life?
16. What did your father teach you about love?
17. What did your father teach you about relationships?
    
18. What did your father do that made you happy?
19. What is your fondest memory of your father?
20. What did your father do that made you sad?
21. What do you wish you could tell your father?
22. Describe how you are like your father.
    
23. Describe your relationship with your mother.
24. How much time did your mother spend with you?
25. How often did your mother tell you that she loved you?
26. What did your mother teach you about life?
27. What did your mother teach you about love?
28. What did your mother teach you about relationships?
    
29. What did your mother do that made you happy?
30. What is your fondest memory of your mother?
31. What did your mother do that made you sad?
32. Describe how you are like your mother.
    
33. What do you wish you could tell your mother?
34. How did your parents show physical affection towards each other?
35. Did your parents spend time alone with each other?
36. Did you go on family vacations? If yes, where? Did you enjoy the family vacations?
37. Were your parents divorced?
38. How old were you when your parents divorced?
39. How did you feel when they divorced?
40. Describe your relationship with your sibling(s).
41. How much time do you spend with your sibling(s)?
42. What was the great gift your sibling(s) gave to you?
43. Does/Do your sibling(s) tell you that they love you?
44. What did your sibling(s) do that made you sad?
45. What did your sibling(s) do that made you happy?
46. What was your first job?
47. How old were you when you started working?
48. What do/did you like about your job?
49. What do/did you dislike about your job?
50. What is your most outstanding accomplishment on the job?
51. What is your biggest failure on the job?
52. Describe your typical day at work.
53. What type of relationships do/did you have with your co-workers?
54. What has been your most satisfying job and why?
55. What motivates you in your job?
56. Who is the best mentor you ever had and why?
57. Do you mentor anyone? If so, why do you mentor?
58. What is your ideal job and why?
59. What is your measure of success on the job?
60. What is your advice about working?
61. What is your advice concerning looking for a job?
62. Do your feel that you balance your job with your family life; with your spiritual life; and with your personal life?
63. What do you like to do in your free time?
64. What do you like about your free time activity?
65. How do you feel when you are doing your free time activity?
66. What brings you joy?
67. What makes you sad?
68. What inspires you?
69. What motivates you?
70. Have you ever been scared? If so, what scared you?
71. Do you ever feel like crying? Do you cry?
72. Have you ever laughed until you cried?
73. What angers you? How do you handle your anger?
    
74. Describe characteristics of a good friend.
75. What made you laugh the hardest?
76. What are your fondest memories of being with your friends?
77. What activities do you and your friends like to do and why?
78. What do you feel is the purpose of life?
79. What is your religion?
80. What do like about your religion?
81. How do you feel when you are practicing your religion?
82. What do you wish women would ask you?
83. What do you need from a woman?
84. What do you admire about women?
85. What do you dislike about women?
86. How do you feel connected to the Earth?
87. What is your fondest memory of being outdoors?
88. What do you like about animals?
89. Do/did you have a favorite animal? Why?
90. Do/did you have a favorite pet? Why?
91. What is your favorite smell?
92. What is your favorite physical feeling?
93. What is your favorite noise?
94. What is your favorite sight?
95. What is your favorite taste?
96. Have you ever had a premonition?
97. Has your heart ever felt like it was breaking? What happened?
    
98. Do you have any regrets? If so what are they?
99. Describe what love feels like.
100. What concerns you about the world?
     

Come up with your own questions, or take turns asking questions back-and-forth…even with girlfriends or guy friends at a social gathering, to get the hang of this “truth or care.” This is one thing you can’t do wrong and always get right when you talk about your life!

And my warm thanks to Colleen who developed and refined this “talking points” list to honor her dad. What a lucky guy to have a daughter like her!

Dr. Dennis O’Grady is the developer of the “directive questioning approach” that opens up lines of communication when they’ve been shut down in a relationship for too long. Dennis is the author of TALK TO ME which is a communication skills handbook that you will hold close because of the results you will see and love. You can also determine your communicator type and your dads communicator type by clicking on “What’s Your Type?” and taking the New Insights Communication Inventory.

Troubled relationships tend to feature certain traits that you shouldn’t live with and personal issues you or your partner would be wise to change IF you want to make your love last. In “Talk to Me,” I proactively discuss what to say when “relationship reg flags” are popping up on your ship of love. No one wants those problems to deep-six your love in Davey Jones’ locker.

If seven or more of these “relationship red flags” are flying in your partnership or marriage…DON’T DELAY…get on the calendar of a communications psychologist TODAY.

1. Critical feedback is reacted to as criticism. A partner becomes defensive, and claims you are attacking him/her, when you are simply telling the truth and communicating your concerns honestly and openly.

2. An “I can’t talk to you!” atmosphere. Missed communication is rampant, and you feel exasperated, helpless and frustrated when you try to talk to your partner…but can’t.

3. Not a happy camper. You frequently feel down and blue. There is an avoidance of positive change and growth as a couple, and distractions such as hobbies, sleep, overwork, friends and family displace talking and sharing.

Has your relationship partner rattled your cage (and serenity) lately with a high-anxiety panic attack disguised as an anger attack? You may cringe at the memory, but chances are your reactive partner has high-anxiety states that spill over over into your personal world…looking much like crazy, angry outbursts or unfair fights.

Psychologically, emotions can layer on top of each other in this situation: Anxiety is often dressed up or disguised on the talk stage as rough and tough…gruff anger. Moreover, anxiety-derived negative words of anger are like sticks and stones that can break relational bones…so you had better duck when anxiety flies.

Hope is here: I often recommend a single talk transaction that can calm down an angry co-communicator pretty effectively. The CommTool or transaction to say calmly in the face of an anger-panic attack person is: “I need you to know I’m feeling anxious…scared…not safe…RIGHT NOW.”

How to know when a RELATIONSHIP PANIC ATTACK is under way:

1. Yelling. Yelling is a form of verbal bashing. Your partner may talk exceptionally loudly, give you “the guilt look,” bring up the past, screech about the unfairness of it all, say inappropriate things (like obscenities) or suffer from “giveupitis” or quitting.

2. Loss of control. Your partner will be red-faced, speech will be pressured, interrupting is common. “S/he acts like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

What do you say when you’re ending a relationship and want to be honest about it? The importance of “completing the circle” of a relationship by saying “good-bye” is brought home by our next contributor.

We all do it. At some point in our lives, we say good-bye. But the one thing we don’t all do is say why.

Everybody ends a relationship in one way or another, but most generally we don’t tell the other person in the relationship why we are ending it. I think we should. I do most of the time. I may not just flat out tell you in exact words why, but I usually tell you.

Good grief, Charlie Brown, is there such a thing…grief that is good for the heart and soul? Loss, saying goodbye and asking why? are very touchy emotional subjects for most of us. But there are good parts to grief, or as I like to say: “Out of the ashes of grief comes new growth!”

I’m serious. Just any low-cost tissue won’t do in my psychotherapy office. Tears are pretty precious…they are an indication of springtime rains that are loosening up old clods of dry grief dirt. Tears signal change, joy, longing, bittersweet memories, mood swings, feeling down, dispiritedness. Mr. or Mrs. Positive we ain’t when a lightning bolt of grief strikes down our status quo and sense of control.