Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Asking your child for their thoughts

I often ask my son what he thinks about things.

Sometimes, this goes really well, and he will give me a great insight into how he is feeling. For example, I had to take him to a religious site for cub scouts over the weekend, and I took him to a Catholic church (he's never been before). I asked him what he was thinking as we approached. He said he had never felt so small.

Sometimes, I get the inevitable "I don't know."

Other times I will get a one word answer and he will somehow redirect the conversation to Minecraft. I am not sure how he does this, but it happens. A lot.

In my head, I get the points for at least asking, and for setting up the precedent. Because I do realize that at one point in the not-too-distant future, I will ask him what he is thinking and he will not want to tell me.

I will admit that the teenage years looming out there both thrill and scare me: They thrill me for the idea that it will be the first time I really see what type of adult my son is becoming, and scare me...for the same reason.

Maybe that is why I absolutely love this article around raising a teenage daughter. A mother wrote the piece and you can click on the highlighted blue phrases to see what her daughter's thoughts/reactions/corrections are to her mother's words. It reads like a conversation between two people who are not in the same room.

And since this is something that all parents want at some point - insight into what their child is thinking - I am considering how my son will react to my words on this blog, in our family journals and scrapbooks in the future. How will he want to annotate them with his thoughts?

I hope none of them contain notes about Minecraft.

How do you get insights into what your child is thinking? Tell me in the comments.

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