My friend’s posted photo made me stop my social media scrolling – the picture she captured through a glass pane of her home as her teen daughter and husband shared some hangout time together hit me as so precious.
It’s hard to find time to talk, let alone recline on the floor and send a parent-to-child message that you are 100% here to listen to them. Her picture captured a vulnerable exchange and a moment that ticked off both.
Sometimes getting to these moments seems utterly impossible. We used to call my son the “Mayor.” He would talk to anybody, all the time. While sitting in his car seat he would talk nonstop about everything he saw, thought and experienced during the day. I loved it. (Though it drove my husband crazy: “If he stopped talking, his butt would fly open!”)
These days, I can see the wheels rolling in my son’s head, but not many details follow. Getting kids to open up and share their increasingly separate-from-you-life can be a downright challenge. But if we’ve learned nothing else during the pandemic, we know that the importance of mental health and talking can be the No. 1 access point to knowing your child.
So we need to take this conversation thing seriously. It’s way too easy to throw in the towel and just walk away, which led me to reach out to a couple of moms with whom I could compare notes on how to get kids to open up.
I got lots of great advice!
Several moms are adept at asking open-ended questions that avoid yes and no answers. It takes a little thinking to set up these questions, but it’s worth it. Others suggested the walk-talk/car-talk strategy, where you give kids a break from being face-to-face with you. I have seen this work well, too.
North Miami mom Amy Simeonson took my question to her college-aged kids; their insights are helpful. Her daughter remembers questions that her mom would ask her such as, “Is there anything you want to tell me about?” Or “Is there anything you have always wanted to ask me, but didn’t?” And finally, “How did you feel about that?”
Simeonson also joined other moms who said that asking specific questions vs. general is helpful. Instead of asking “How was school?” you could ask “How is Emma?” or “How was geography?”
When it came to her son she went hardcore, with a useful lesson for many of us.
“When I would pick him up from classes or sports or time with his friends, I would say, ‘No phone until you give me all the details of your time away from me.’ And I made him use detail,” said Simeonson. “It was the only way he was allowed to pull out his phone! So he would go in order from the beginning of the day to the end of his time away from me. We would deviate with my follow-up questions, but it was an awesome way to get the conversations rolling. When there is no escape, the floodgates open.”
I’ve found my kids are particularly eager to talk after good things have just happened, like when a package arrives for them in the mail, they’re relieved after getting a good grade or we’ve gone shopping to get them new shoes for school. Those moments when they’re “up” seem to be when they’re most open to talking – and where we can get to the stuff that really matters.
Perhaps the most consistent underlying theme noted from all the moms – whether stated or implied – was the importance of time. When kids are ready to talk you, gotta be ready to stop whatever you are doing, splay out on the floor, listen with intent and let them be heard.
This can seem impossible!
Just stop my work? Just stop making dinner? Just stop heeding the boss’ requests?
I agree with you. It’s super inconvenient and messy and maybe it’ll even cost a little money (like ordering out instead of a home-cooked meal), but whatever it is you are not doing so that you can do life with your kid won’t matter when they have flown the coop – conversation is priceless.
It’s summertime and I for one am going to use this season to make more moments for my children, to be purposeful about stopping my doing and doing more listening.
I want my friend’s picture to be my picture, times three kids. Even if no one ever snaps a picture to prove it.
When wearing her work hat, Lisa Mozloom is a media and presentation training coach and PR practitioner at The M Network, but at home she is a woman passionate about raising three teens, loving her husband, and finding ways to extend hospitality and hope to those around her.