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50 questions to ask your kids instead of “How was your day?”
Bunks
Australia Veteran
Someone sent me this today. Thought I’d share for anyone with school age kids.
https://herviewfromhome.com/50-questions-to-ask-your-kids-instead-of-asking-how-was-your-day/
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Comments
Nice questions. But what about the follow-through...?
I wonder how many parents, asking those questions, would be suitably psychologically equipped to be able to cope and support the resulting answers?
It all looks a little bit too much like a psychological exercise to me. An incomplete one at that....
Mind you, parents unable to cope with, handle or field the responses, would probably not have the mental agility to ask them in the first place, she said, concluding....
I vote with @federica -- a little too cute, a little too sincere.
At times a simple seed is all that's needed to make a beautiful garden....
Parents are normally quite busy and for many, constructive 'parent child time' is not factored into their day...
Just a few simple questions like some of those in the link could start a wholesome chain reaction...
Mind you even though my children are all young adults now, when we talk I still asked how their day/weeks been ...and I really do want to know....
Good one @Bunks
I followed a link at the bottom to a similar article. It has just 4 questions once they're tucked in, the framework of a nightly conversation.
http://herviewfromhome.com/the-bedtime-hoops-4-important-questions-to-ask-your-kids-every-night/
A lot of those questions get asked at the dinner table in my house every evening. My wife and I probably try harder than most parents do to stay involved in the goings on in their teenage children's lives. Some of the answers over the years have been priceless.
I have seen it, and think it's not so bad. Sometimes we just need conversational starting points. If someone has to worry if they can respond to what their children might answer, they should probably be talking more often!
disclaimer: the following is not directed at @Bunks or anyone else here who might have found use in the article. It is just a general comment based on other observations of parents I know in person.
What I find sad is that parents need a magazine or blog to tell them how to talk to their own children. Most parents I know who stop with the "how was your day?" do so out of laziness. We all do it sometimes, I don't mean them. But the people who manage to go through years of parenting without ever truly engaging their children.They feel like they should say something and that is the easiest because not only is it quick, they know their kids will have no answers so they pretend they are involved and then are shocked to learn they don't know their own kids. They largely have children out of a sense of "it's what to do next" and seem boggled that they have these little humans who need things from them for the next 20 years. So many parents are, sadly, a lot like dog owners. Who think puppies are so cute and then are super annoyed by the work portion of caring for them. To be a good parent means to really dig into yourself and to pull your shit together. Too few people are interested in doing so. Those who do, don't need blogs to tell them how to talk to their children.
And admit I am irritable today after finding out yet another long-time local criminal raped a child in my son's class today. So that is what I talked about with my children today.
Take care @karasti.
May you be well, may you be happy.
May all beings in all realms be well and happy. May they live with ease.
I must confess I find parenting difficult at times. And I probably use tv and the ipad as baby sitters too often.
It's hard.....
Parenting is very hard @Bunks . I hear ya. Hardest thing I've ever done by a country mile! My 2 boys are hyperactive. Always going. Like little dynamos. A trampoline was a life saver for me. They bounce around inside it like crazy until they are tired. I dedicate my meditation today to trampolines.
15 questions modern parents are likely to ask their kids, instead of 'How was your day?'
The comedian Richard Pryor was once doing a riff on parenting and said approximately, "When the first kid comes along, every cough and sniffle is cause for the deepest concern. By the time the fifth one arrives, it's 'Don't do your heroin in the living room.'"
On a more serious note, I honestly believe that parenting is as close to honest meditation as anyone is likely to get assuming they like or love their kids. Attention is a 24/7 business... a killer-diller if ever there were one.
Parenting is hard, for sure. But I think a lot of the difficulty comes in having to set aside our preconceived ideas to allow for them to truly be themselves and follow their own path even as we try to guide them and hope nothing awful happens to them in the process. We are often gifted with children that challenge us immensely. I don't think that's an accident. We can choose to see it as misery or we can choose to embrace it and make an adventure out of it. Where parenting got overwhelming to me was when I realized that it never ends. We so often thing we raise kids until they are X age and then, whew, we made it! But you never retire from parenting. Once your kids are flying on their own, then they have kids, and you get to help them learn how to be parents (or whatever else comes along). Once a parent, you parent for the rest of your life in some capacity. That's kind of overwhelming! But also a fantastic opportunity.
If y'all eat dinner at the table, you're already ahead of the curve.