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How to be More Socratic at Home - Step 1

By Zach Lahn on July 20, 2022

Annie and I believe a path to finding more joy and less frustration as a parent is to become more Socratic with our children.

A previous post described what it means to be Socratic and the five steps to getting there, now I’ll break down each of the steps individually.

Step 1: Get clear on your “WHY?” as a parent.

This step has three underlying questions:

  1. What do I want for my child? Answering this question is harder than it seems. I was able to get to my own answer by imagining I would die tomorrow and have one last chance to give my children a message about their learning/work. Would my message be: Get good grades, get into college and get a good job; or, Discover your inner gifts and use them to help others for this is where joy lies; or, Don’t worry, be happy; or, something else?
  2. With the answer to question #1 in mind, what do I want to be as a parent? This brief description of four parenting styles may help you decide.
  3. What do we want to be together as a family? This steps requires taking time to talk about what it means to be a family, even create a mission statement as well as decide on a few goals for your life together. Wonder families write family plans based on the simple process outlined in Patrick Lencioni’s book, The 3 Big Questions for A Frantic Family. It’s a great read!

We hope by pondering these questions, your life begins to feel more like an adventure and less like a stress-filled hodgepodge.

[Blogs or portion of blogs may be adapted from the blog of our partner school founder and advisor, Laura Sandefer.]