PAH x RBTL: 🫂 Seeing the Human Beneath our Parents
This workshop is hosted by Parents Are Human, a bilingual connection card game designed to spark deep conversation with your loved ones, in partnership with Relating Between the Lines, a program that teaches you the tools to listen and express skillfully. We invite you to join this workshop if you’re open to exploring how to be a better listener with your parents.
In our relationships with our parents, there are some commonly held beliefs that we believe in because they feel intuitive, but in reality, they are getting in the way and creating more strain, headaches, and confusion in our relationships. One such commonly-held, but actually unhelpful belief is that we should aim to be helpful to our parents by giving advice, solving problems, and telling them how to do things.
But just like how we definitely don’t like receiving unsolicited advice about what to wear or what careers to pursue, our parents certainly don’t feel more connected to us when we listen from the mindsets of:
I already know (what you’ll say and how you’ll respond)
I have better (information, perspectives, solutions)
I am right (about my beliefs and choices)
We fail to see our parents as human when we treat them as problems to be solved instead of people to connect with (flaws, vulnerability, and all!).
In this workshop, we’ll explore the principle of “Supporting over Solving” to rewire our problem-solving impulse and explore how to relate with our parents in a more open-hearted, inviting, and supportive way. After the 1-hour workshop, we will host a Q&A with Joseph Lam, co-creator of Parents Are Human and Norman Tran and Stephanie Tran, co-founders of Relating Between the Lines.
At 🌈 Relating Between the Lines, we are fortunate to have been able to serve students from these companies:
Joseph Lam is a second-generation Chinese American on a mission to help people connect deeply with their parents. For the last few years, the most important priority in his life has been healing the broken relationship he had with his immigrant parents for over a decade. Joseph wanted to get to know his mom and dad before it was too late, and co-created Parents Are Human to help others do the same. He is currently helping his parents improve their physical health and documenting their stories every week.
Norman Tran is a facilitator for Stanford Graduate School of Business' legendary Touchy-Feely class, which has trained MBA's on interpersonal dynamics for over 50 years. After facilitating and creating learning experiences for companies like Facebook, IDEO, Stanford d.school, he co-founded 🌈 Relating Between the Lines, an 8-week program that teaches the art of skillfully navigating conversations with the people we care about most. Norman is on a mission to “queer-eye” communication by sharing what he’s learned as a gay neurodivergent (ADHD 2e) man trying to find a sense of belonging in a world that is not designed for people like him. Norman is currently improving his relationship with his parents by asking his dad spot him in workouts and making ugly faces with his mom.
Stephanie Tran previously founded a wellness company that taught people how to design healthier lifestyles by talking about shame, not running from it. As a daughter of immigrants, she grew up in a household that valued professional success over creative expression. Stephanie has reclaimed her voice by infusing delight, heart, and craftswomanship into every step of a student’s journey in 🌈 Relating Between the Lines. She is currently helping her parents’ live out their dreams and recently jumpstarted their small at-home bakery selling pineapple shortbread, inspired by Taiwanese pineapple pastries.
A Note on Full Participation
To ensure the best learning experience for yourself and others, please download the latest client version of Zoom (Version 5.9.3), and come on time to the workshop. We will close doors 5 minutes after the session begins.
Ahead of the workshop, we would like to let you know that the learning experiences we design at 🌈 Relating Between the Lines are interactive. Like riding a bike, relationships cannot be learned through observation alone, without a willingness to fall, and in absence of your fullest attention.
Therefore, we invite all attendees to take a 5-10 minute break before the session and to participate fully by having their video on during the session. We have found that having your video on is the most effective way for you to connect with others in the community, experience the material first-hand, and to practice showing up as you are (a sometimes vulnerable, but necessary part of relating with others).
With so many of us working in virtual spaces because of the pandemic, we understand that not everyone will have the bandwidth to have their video on in Zoom. If you feel you cannot have your video on during the workshop, that is completely OK—we will kindly ask you to leave and invite you to take this time to take care of yourself. In a world that constantly asks so much of us, we want this to be a space where you are reminded of your own humanity. We are certain there will be many more workshops in the future where we can serve you when you have the means to participate fully, and we look forward to seeing you in a future one!