Still Talkin'

We talk to our kids.  A lot.  I assume all parents do.  We talk about their day at school, how activities, went, all that stuff.  Now don't get me wrong, most of the time when I ask how school was, I get the one word answers you would expect:  "Good."  "Fine."  "Ok."  sometimes even "Great!" from my second grader.  But I don't leave it at that.  I have a series of questions I ask casually throughout the night.  For example:

• Who'd you play with at recess today?
• What was the coolest question you heard or asked today?
• What's happening in the book you're reading with your class?
• How was gym/media/computer lab/music?
• What did you talk about at lunch today?

I don't ask all of those; usually, one or two is all that's necessary to get them sharing something more meaningful about their day.  As the night goes on, more stories flow out of them, and before long Brian and I have a pretty good picture of their day.  There are times when they don't want to talk about things right away, and when that happens, we give them space.  But by bedtime, those experiences usually come spilling out as well.  We've tried hard to build a culture of communication and trust with them.  Only time will tell how successful we have been. 

But over the course of the last few months, I've had three different people in very different situations comment on the fact that our kids still tell us things about their lives.  Most of them are just commenting not passing judgement, but all have found it noteworthy that our kids tell us things about their friends, teachers, activities, etc.  What I find of note, however, is that this isn't the norm.   I know our kids don't share everything with us.  As Gabe gets older, he probably won't share as many of those details as he does now.  But I'll keep asking.  Maintaining their sense of privacy and autonomy is crucial, but learning to share life with the people closest to you--that's really what it's all about.