I spent a good deal of the morning asking questions. Mind you, not the questions I should have been asking: What am I doing with my life, what’s our plan for the future, or who is this Vietnamese man in our bed. No, I spent the morning asking Malcolm questions. Why? Yesterday was shit. Malcolm stayed up way too late on friday night, and has been a cranky butthead ever since. When he is tired, he is mean, vulgar and way too physical, sorta like Amy when she’s drunk. Yesterday had a lot of yelling and a lot tears.
Today, I decided to mix it up. Instead of yelling at him and ordering him around, I began to ask him questions. I heard about this approach somewhere before, although I am not sure where. The theory goes, if you ask your kid open-ended questions, they will spend their precious brain activity formulating responses and that is good for their brain. It can also be good for your relationship if it means that you don’t want to throttle them anymore.
So this morning was a lot of questions. Instead of telling him what do and what not to do, I tried to limit my communication to him to questions. I asked about our plans for the day. I asked whether he thought knocking the chair over at breakfast was a good idea. I asked if we were going to get along better and why. It was an extremely difficult exercise because, A) you have to really engage with your kids to make it work, and B) you end up asking absurd questions just to keep things moving along. At one point, I asked Malcolm whether it would hurt his meatballs to ride a camel. It is extremely difficult to engage your kids this way, but a good way to get out of rut. I wasn’t able to just ask him open-ended questions, but maybe I’ll get better at it. This is definitely a skill building exercise.
Eventually he got tired of talking to me. (The smart ones always do.) He took off and is now playing in his room by himself. Of course, this means I am going to do this all the time. If short bursts of intense engagement will lead to long periods of alone time, I am going to try this little trick as much as I can. I guess this makes sense, as I get annoyed whenever Malcolm peppers me with questions. Try it sometime. Maybe your kids will lose interest in talking to you, too!
Tags: parenting
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Paul,
Seriously, every time I read this, I laugh out loud. A lot. Can’t put a price on that. Thanks!!
Paul,
Both hilarious and true. When I was in college, I took an acting class and one of the improv games we used to play was called “Just Questions.” I think it was also one of the games used on “Whose Line Is It Anyway.” So, in the game, you’re supposed to carry on a conversation by only asking questions. It’s great training for trying to engage your children.
When I see my son after coming home from work and ask him “How was school?” I tend to get the same tired response. When I ask him to tell me about his favorite thing, or something funny that happened today, or… you get the idea. It tends to work out so much better. Plus it helps me to generally understand who he is, and that makes me a better parent in the long-run.
Lizcat, actually can put a price on it. $2.75. I’ll shake it out of you in Hawaii.
Eppie, it definitely does seem like a game when I am doing it. You have to focus really hard and things does not seem very organic. Still, it gets results.