Are you practicing an "MGI" or an "LGI"? It can make all the difference.

Want to be a better parent, friend or colleague?

There’s a simple lesson from psychologists that you can adopt right now to improve your relationships – no matter the age of the person who is confusing or upsetting you. It’s the difference between assuming the best or the worst in people, also known as the most or least generous interpretations.

“Most of us jump right to an ‘LGI’: the least generous interpretation,” said Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist and author of Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, who has helped to popularise these terms.

That’s because we likely grew up with people who taught us “to associate bad behaviour with bad intentions or being a bad person,” Kennedy said.

Even trained psychologists like Kennedy deal with this impulse. “When my child snaps or ignores me, my brain automatically goes to: ‘They’re being defiant. They don’t respect me.’”

“I’ve had to train myself to pause and ask: ’What’s the most generous interpretation here? Maybe they’re tired. Maybe they’re overwhelmed. Maybe they don’t yet have the words for what they’re feeling, and so their out-of-control behaviour is the only way to let me know what’s going on.“

It can take some time, but once you learn to make this switch, you might be surprised by how differently you see every toddler tantrum – or miscommunication by a friend or partner.

“That tiny mindshift changes everything,” Kennedy explained. “It doesn’t mean I excuse behaviour. ... Ironically, we have to understand a behaviour to help someone change their behaviour.”

Why ‘most generous interpretation’ works so well with adults and kids

Are you practicing an "MGI" or an "LGI"? It can make all........

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