16 June 2025

Amber Bramble

How recognising blind spots can help you to build trust as a parent

As much as every parent wants to be perfect, the reality is that everyone is fallible. While some mistakes are easy to address, what about the ones we can’t see? These are known as blind spots, those hidden biases and behaviours are usually obvious to everyone but ourselves.

“Everyone has blind spots, and we can’t help that because we’re human,” explains Dr Kirstin Ferguson, leadership expert and author of the new book, Blindspotting.

Kirstin says these blind spots can affect every aspect of our lives. As a mum with two grown daughters, she says this includes the way we raise our kids.

“Understanding them and hunting for them lets you deal with some of these challenges that are probably being caused by your blind spots,” she says.

“This takes the pressure off us as parents, because it means we don’t always have to be right. It’s OK not to know what to do as a parent.”

THE PRICE OF PERFECTION

Whether it’s the way we were raised or the world around us, we all have a few misconceptions that we’ve never questioned. This includes classic stereotypes (such as assuming boys shouldn’t cry or girls should be tidy), but Kirstin says we can also develop blind spots from unrealistic expectations that we place on ourselves.

“We might think we can mould the perfect child or the perfect outcome, and that’s a blind spot,” she says. Understanding our limitations and recognising our biases can be an important step when identifying blind spots.

“Much the stress of being a parent comes from worrying about our child’s behaviour. Are they achieving enough? Are they polite enough? You know, none of that’s actually about the kids, that’s all about us,” Kirstin says.

“By being able to disentangle our ego, we can really think about, ‘Am I responding to my child’s needs, or am I fearful of how I’m being judged?’”

DIG DEEPER

Listening with an open mind can also help you to break some common patterns you may be falling into.

“When there’s a child who’s misbehaving, our instinct is to correct them or to discipline them, but if we’re really curious, we’re going to try and find out why are they misbehaving? What is really going on here rather than just yelling at them to stop?” Kirstin says.

“Instead of just telling them what to do, ask them, ‘What did you think might happen?’ Or ‘How did that make you feel?’ Asking really good, open-ended questions builds trust with your kids.”

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

Kirstin says the same questioning approach can help with parents, in-laws or anyone else who is dictating how they think you should raise your child.

“‘You might be able to ask questions like, ‘Oh, it’d be really helpful for me to understand what it is you think I’m not doing as well as I could be. Because, you know, this is working for us, the child and I, yet you don’t seem happy with that. Why is that?’”

By digging deeper, you might find these beliefs have been triggered by their own past experiences. “By having the conversation, hopefully you can overcome their fears,” Kirstin says.

Once you reach that point, Kirstin suggests opening a deeper conversation. You could start this by saying something like, “You know, I’m really trying to seek the best way to make this work for us, and so I really appreciate if you and I can talk about this privately, not in front of our kids.”

READ THE ROOM

Blindspotting isn’t just for parents, it can work for everything from awkward neighbourly disputes to heated conversations with friends about politics.

“It’s particularly good for really polarised conversations,” Kirstin says. “Try and seek to understand why they’ve got very different views to your own. You don’t need to change your mind. This isn’t about flip-flopping, but about being respectful and curious.”

Whether you change your mind or not, the goal is to reach a place of better understanding.

“It may be that you will learn something from what they tell you about a position they have or a view they’ve got. And if you’re open minded, you may end up with more of an understanding about where they’re coming from,” Kirstin says. “So I think this applies in every sort of interpersonal connection.”