Innovation by SIT

A big part of my life over the past three years has been dedicated to my role as an aunt. I can proudly say that after gaining hours and hours of “Rani (my nephew’s name) time,” I am a certified (some would say “certifiable”) aunt.

I do enjoy spending time with my nephew, but the little fella sure knows how to keep me, and mostly his parents, on our toes.

I want to share with you an incident that I am sure all of you who have kids, are related to kids or watched over kids, are familiar with. Bear with me through the description of the incident because, at the end, I would love to hear about your experiences as well.

During a game at a play date last week, Rani banged his head against a window and started crying. You know, that type of crying that makes even the iciest of hearts melt. I ran to him, breaking the 2.5-meter world record, took him in my arms, and rocked him against me while murmuring the most ridiculously ineffective things such as “shush now, don’t cry, the pain will go away soon” or futilely getting him to look at the new crayons on the table. While his sobbing continued as strongly, I was thinking to myself that I have to do better – and different – if I want this to work - which led me to the SIT inventive problem solving approach.

I reminded myself that one of the characteristics of inventive problem solving is that the problem is the solution. This led me to the realization that my salvation will not come from bizarre traditional sentences such as “the pain will go away by your wedding day” or external resources like the crayons on the table. Rather, I need to focus my attention on my crying nephew in order to come up with an inventive solution.

I, therefore, looked closer at my crying nephew taking inventory of my available resources such as Rani’s tears, Rani’s clothes etc.

Then, I noticed Rani do the tiniest thing which made me go “Eureka! Got it!”
All he did was blow air heavily on my neck. I instantly had an idea of how to use this fact to solve my problem. The next time he blew air on my neck, I made a big theatrical scene, saying:” Who did that?! Where did it come from?! Someone is blowing air on my neck!”
I then held my breath and waited….and there it was – the tinniest pause in his sobs followed by another, intentional blow of air. I then exaggerated my reaction even more making a whole fuss about it and this time, I got the most wonderful sound - a giggle!
From that moment on, it turned into a game and within a matter of seconds, my nephew was back to his cheerful self, running around the backyard acting as if nothing ever happened.
In case you were wondering about his aunt, well, the fact that I am writing about it in the blog a week later should tell you how far behind me this incident really is…

The whole event got me thinking that if there ever was a place where being innovative is a must, it has to be parenting or in my case, aunt-ing.

Routine, daily activities such as getting my nephew to eat, take a bath, brush his teeth, go to bed while avoiding confrontation and permanent damage to his tender soul (or mine), are definitely areas where one could think and act differently in a useful and
effective way (the SIT working definition of innovation).

Here is an example of parental innovative thinking in a situation with which I am sure you are familiar.

Innovation should be applied to any area where what you do today does not work well enough. No matter how big or small, work or non-work related.

From personal experience I can tell you that it is not easy, BUT the beauty of it is that if one applies Systematic Inventive Thinking regularly and for an extended period of time; innovating becomes one’s second nature.

The example I mentioned above is just a first sign that this is starting to happen to me….

What about you? Has innovation “invaded” your home?

I would love it if you shared examples of how you use innovation (SIT methodology or others) in your parenting, babysitting or aunt-ing.