This may sound silly, but do you talk to your children on a consistent basis? Not just talk, but communicate? Is there ever a time when you are sharing the same space, and you don’t talk? As your children get older it is more common to be caught up in the tasks at hand (especially for them), but you don’t have to take their lead in letting the busyness of life get in the way of the relationships that make life worth living.
There should never be a day when you don’t talk with a child who lives under your roof. The moods and interests of children can change daily, so you have to do your best to keep up. Simple phrases like, “How was your day?” and “What did you think about the game/movie/new song” are great starters, but don’t be content with “It was good.” The best questions to ask are open ended questions. These make the child think more, and it’s harder to simply take the easy way out and not communicate.
Questions like “Why do you think the Broncos had a hard time scoring today?” or “Who is your favorite teacher?…why?” are examples of open ended questions, questions that can’t simply be answered with a yes or a no. Certain personality types will be more inclined to continue the conversation, but many times (especially in the teen years) kids are focused on what they are thinking about and not very interested in explaining it to you. That’s o.k. Take what you can get and keep asking questions, that’s the best way to engage your child(ren).
Don’t just talk. Listen to what they have to say (especially once they hit double digits). Let them know that you are interested in what they have to say, and in their opinions. Don’t divide your attention between your child and a cell phone, or a football game. Show them they are more important to you than those things. What they have to say may not seem very important to you, but in their world, with their limited view, it has a lot more significance than you realize.
Kids in general will gravitate to the oldest person they know that will take them seriously. Do you take your child(ren) seriously? Or do you brush their problems under the rug, because compared to yours they are a walk in the park? When you take your child seriously, you build their confidence that what they have to say is worth hearing (even if the specifics of what they have to say today aren’t). You can validate your child(ren) that their opinions and their point of view are worth being heard simply by listening, and keep in mind, in their early years, they don’t have to be right, …or even make sense!
You can discover a tremendous amount about your child(ren) simply by engaging their brains. It’s amazing how much you can learn by listening, and asking them why they think what they just told you is true. There are times when they will talk themselves out of their previous point of view, and there are times when they will amaze you with the insight that their innocent observations have brought to your life! For them to be wrong is the not the same earth shattering event that it is for you to be wrong, Dad. It’s really not that for you either, but I know that years of pride have built up in many of us and we want to save our children from “being wrong” – don’t worry they’ll be just fine.