I have been doing a fair amount of advocating for some of our children over the last few weeks. It started me thinking about all of the details and steps that I take to wade through all the red tape, make contact with the right people and follow the proper channels. Sometime in the recent past, I had a huge revelation…not everyone is like me! While I am sure this goes without saying, the point I want to make here is that not everyone likes to go toe to toe with an adversary (or perceived adversary). A lot of people would rather avoid locking horns with authority figures. Some people just do not like confrontation, while others (like me) sort of live for it!
Now before anyone gets the wrong idea here, I am not going to suggest some sort of civil unrest activity, law breaking or authority figure bashing…nothing like that. This topic is just something that I have been dealing with lately and I wondered if other families might benefit from what I have learned…sometimes the hard way. Some of these tips might be a ‘no brainer’ for you, but if by chance you are under a lot of stress and forgetful…here are some gentle reminders.
First let’s start with the three P’s - Polite, Patient and Persistent.
Polite – Grandma always said that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar…even though it is sort of a gross idiom, it does make the point. I have learned that a little bit of appreciation and gratitude can go a long way. Some of the people that you may be dealing with are overworked and underpaid…or at least feel like they are which often makes them grouchy. Some of these folks also work with other families that express a huge sense of entitlement…meaning they have “the world owes me” kind of attitude. Sometimes a simple ‘Thank You for all of your hard work on behalf of our family’, may be the only positive thing they have heard in months at this job.
Always try ‘honey’ first, you may be forced to go with ‘vinegar’ down the road, but we’ll discuss that later.
Patient – Give people the appropriate amount of time to respond to your request. Unless you have an extremely urgent matter, cut them some slack. I try to make a practice of giving people plenty of notice as often as I can, so that I am not always bombarding them with urgent requests all over the place. If you try to follow this practice you will hopefully avoid “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome. Then if you do have an urgent request come up, they will hopefully respond quickly.
Persistent – While this may seem to be a direct contradiction to the previous tip. I like to call it “Patiently Persistent.” This is where you have to balance allowing them the time they need versus following up to make sure they are doing whatever needs to be done. This means that you keep on top of things, checking in to see what progress is being made, follow up phone calls, follow up emails, etc. Do not assume anything or take anything for granted. A nice way of putting it would be, “Trust but Verify” EVERYTHING.
I have a few more thoughts on this subject but I will save those for the next post. Until then...Merry Christmasl!!
Cherri
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