You have explained it three times. To your partner, to your mother, to the teacher at your child’s school. And the third time landed worse than the first. If you know that feeling of talking to a wall while being absolutely sure you are right, you are not alone. Most of us were never taught what to do when another adult digs in.
This talk is part of our ongoing series inside the Childhood Potential Club, where members gain access to expert LiveTalks, the full recordings with live Q&A, and a growing library of over 200 videos on Montessori and conscious parenting. Our guest, Elena Aguilar, has spent more than thirty years coaching teachers and school leaders, and her new book, How to Coach Resistance, is about exactly the moment described above. In this conversation with Lucie she brings it home: to partners, grandparents, nannies and teaching partners.
Resistance needs two people
Elena opens with Sandra, a teacher at the first school where she worked as a full time coach. Baseball cap pulled down, back row, arms folded, everything done deliberately slowly. For two years Elena tried to break her. Only much later did she understand that what she read as resistance was Sandra’s fear: of being judged, of being seen as incompetent, of losing her autonomy. And that Elena met that fear with her own, the fear of a new coach who needed to be effective. Two fears pushing against each other. That, she says, is what resistance is made of.
Her picture for it is two hands. When someone pushes back, it feels like their hand is pushing against yours. Drop your hand, and what is left is not resistance. It is their fear, their confusion, sometimes their grief. And you can work with that.
The six needs behind almost every no
Elena works with six core human needs: belonging, autonomy, competence, self esteem, trust in ourselves, and purpose. Whenever we suffer, at least one of them is unmet or feels threatened. So when grandma hears “please let him try it himself” as “you are doing it wrong”, she is most likely defending her competence, and perhaps her wish to be seen as a partner rather than a problem. Listening for which need is under threat changes what you say next. Instead of explaining the Montessori approach one more time, you might ask her to help you understand why her way feels right to her, and then invite her to try something together.
Before you decide they simply do not want to
One of the most useful tools in the talk is what Elena calls Mind the Gap. Before you conclude that someone lacks the will to cooperate, check six other explanations: a skill gap, a knowledge gap, a capacity gap, a will gap, an emotional intelligence gap, and a cultural competence gap. True will gaps, she says, are rare. Far more often a skill gap shows up as unwillingness, because it is embarrassing to admit we do not know how to do something. Her own example is her teenage son, who kept getting up late for the train. Shouting from the bottom of the stairs did nothing. Coaching him revealed he had simply never planned backwards from the departure time.
When you have already explained it ten times
The escalation is predictable. You do not feel understood, frustration rises, and the fourth explanation comes out with more pressure than the first. Elena’s move is to stop and name it. “I have just tried to say the same thing three times and I can see it is not working. I want to pause.” Then a question: “What have you heard from me so far?” Slowing down and naming what is happening is, in her experience, one of the most powerful things you can do when tension is rising.
Why changing the behaviour alone never holds
Every behaviour grows out of a belief, and when the two are not aligned, the change does not last. Elena coached a very traditional teacher into group work, saw it working for six weeks, and came back months later to find the desks in rows again. “I realised I did not believe children need to talk in order to learn.” Beliefs are not truths, she reminds us. They are strongly held opinions, and they can be updated, but only if we surface them first.
One thing to change before tomorrow
Asked what to change before the next difficult conversation, Elena’s answer is disarmingly simple. Go in remembering something you like about the other person, something you appreciate, some sign that they truly do care. Assume that deep down they want to connect with you and feel supported by you. The conclusion of her book puts it in two words: choose love. Not as a sentiment, but as the place inside yourself you keep digging back to when the other person is difficult.
Meet Elena Aguilar
Elena Aguilar has spent over thirty years in education, first as a classroom teacher, then as an instructional and leadership coach. She is the founder and CEO of Bright Morning, which trains coaches and school leaders around the world in transformational coaching, and she hosted The Bright Morning Podcast for nearly three hundred episodes. She is the author of nine books, including The Art of Coaching, Onward, Coaching for Equity and Arise. Her newest, How to Coach Resistance: Turning Pushback into Possibility, is published this September. She lives in Oakland, California.
