We’ve all been there. The kids climb into the car as we pick them up from school and our immediate question for them is, “how was your day at school?” And it seems to never fail, everyday, year-after-year we get the same response, “good.”
In his book, It’s Better to Build Boys than Mend Men, S. Truett Cathy addresses this predicament that all parents face almost daily:
I’ve read surveys that show how little time parents spend with their children, and I wonder how they expect to build relationships in just a few minutes a day. Many parents, including folks who work at Chick-fil-A, have a shortage of time with their families. That’s one reason why we close all of our restaurants on Sunday, so that families can be guaranteed at least one day a week together.
Knowing that time is tight and that you have only a few years to make the strongest positive impact on your children, don’t spend your precious family days on the golf course or watching sports on television all afternoon. Don’t consider watching TV with your children to be “quality time.” You may be in the same room, buy you’re not together. Participate in activities with your children. Play games together. Seek opportunities to be with them on their turf. Volunteer to coach their sports team, lead their Scout troop, or teach their Sunday school class.
Then communicate. But don’t expect them to share their feelings on your schedule. You have to wait patiently. When our children were young and I came home from work, I’d ask. “How are things?” They’d say, “Good.” And that was the end of the conversation.
I learned that when you talk to children, a conversation won’t happen when it’s convenient for you but when it’s convenient for them. You never call a child in and then say, “Well, let’s talk.” The child won’t have anything to say. But if you’re around children long enough, they’ll open up and start to share their problems or opportunities. When they do, you’d better stop whatever you’re doing to listen because the opportunity may not come around again for a while.
One weekend when our daughter, Trudy, was home from college, she told me, “Dad, the thing I remember most about you are the times you sat at my bedside and let me tell you all the things I did that day.” All the possessions we had shared with her-clothes, a car, a nice house to grow up in-were secondary to those times we spent together at bedtime talking.
Join the conversation…what has been your experience with engaging your child into conversation?
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