Do you struggle with getting your kids to talk? If you have little kids that are not yet in school, you may be thinking, “how do I get my kid to stop talking!”
My advice, enjoy it while you can. I desperately miss the days of listening to my little ones talk endlessly about random things. I did not realize how much I would miss the days of asking my kid what they were doing and actually getting an answer.
When my kids started school, I was not too fond of the idea of no longer being a part of what they did all day. Understandably, I was super disappointed when I did not get a full rundown of how their day went.
It is even worse when the kids get older, and they immediately throw in their earbuds and clam up once we get in the car.
I think there are a few tricks as parents we can do to get our kids to talk more. The first thing we can do as parents is to pay attention to what we are doing WRONG:
Do you talk too much and not listen enough? Are you distracted when they DO talk? Do you criticize when you should stay silent? Are you judgmental about their friends? Do you try to solve all of their problems instead of just listening?
We can also start asking better questions when they do start to talk: That is awesome! What happened next? How did that make you feel? Why did he do that? What would you have done instead? Do you want my advice? What can I do to help you? Would you like some ice cream?
I can remember when my son told me a story about something his friends were doing. I wanted to scream and demand to know more! Instead, I kept my feeling to myself and asked him questions like, “your friend is an athlete; does he know how harmful that is to his lungs?” I also asked my son what or if he was going to do anything about it.
My son asked me. “what could I do about it?” I responded with suggestions like giving his friend some advice and reminding him about the negative consequences if he continued. Or what the results would be if he got caught at school or by his parents.
It is crucial to help our kids think through situations and scenarios that they have not considered.
Can you imagine how the conversation would have gone if I began with, “WHAT! Does his mother know?! You have not done that, right!?!
But I digress. Back to the original question. How do we get our kids to talk to us? I have found some decent success when using conversation starters.
These are topics that can help get the ball rolling for a fun talk. They can help us get to know our kids better, their friends, and our own friends.
Here is a list of conversation starters that you might enjoy. So, turn off the music in the car and start asking away. You may find that you are the only one talking for a few minutes, but hopefully, the kids will join in with time.
