As it came up today, I think this is actually my greatest parenting success: I decided a long time ago that if my child was excited to tell me something, nothing was more important to me than listening to him talk about it. No “tell me in a minute”, no “wait for the commercial” or “tell me later tonight”. Unless I was doing something truly important that could not wait (rare), whatever I was doing was not as important as whatever my kid was excited to tell me.
There were times I spent what seemed like forever hearing about a video game while I wanted to be watching my movie or listening to every detail of a TV show he had watched when I was trying to read a book. While the actual content of what he was saying might be of no real interest to me, I decided a that the fact that my child wanted to talk to me was the greatest gift I could receive from him. I listen, I ask questions, I never belittle or dismiss him.
The result of this is that I have a 17 year old son who talks to me. So many other parents I’ve talked to don’t know what’s going on with their teenagers or their friends. I know because my kid talks to me, and I listen. I was talking to the mother of one of his friends the other day and I said something about her son and she wanted know how I knew, because she didn’t know. I just said, “My son talks to me.” She wanted to know how I got him to talk. I just said, “Because I always listened.”
Clever rules I came up with when my kids were little:
“Ask me in a way that makes me want to do it.” (Instead of “say please”.)
“Don’t make work for other people.” (Covers so many situations.)
“Try being nice first. You can always decide to be mean later.” (Apparently I told my daughter this when she started preschool and it made a huge impression.)
Another big rule in our household: No name calling, ever. Calling someone stupid was an instant time out. It really prevented little arguments from escalating into big ones.
Most amazing spur-of-the-moment improvisation: Five minutes before we left for day camp my daughter announced she needed a space alien costume. Mickey Mouse ears + construction paper + glue stick = wearable green eye stalks. She got to camp on time and won first prize in the costume contest!
Hey, my mother counts it as a win that I did that and copied them to mp3 so she can play them in the computer! She never learned to use the record player, as she always had someone else around she could use as a biological remote.
