We read books with them and play. We do spelling words night after night. We make chore lists and plan day trips, but when is the last time you actually asked your child how they were feeling? What have you done in that crazy schedule to help them learn how to vocalize their problems and help them do a “check-in” so they can stay in touch with their feelings and learn how to express them to others in a healthy way?
As parents we want the best for our children. We want them happy, healthy, and safe. We want them to succeed in school and in life. We spend so much of our time juggling playdates and soccer games while trying to instill a sense of personal responsibility that sometimes we lose touch of how our child is actually feeling.
Questions You Should Be Asking Your Child
I ask my child 2 questions a few times a week.
1) Are you happy?
2 ) Do you know you are loved?
Are You Happy?
It may seem like a simple enough question but you would be amazed at what you can learn about your child just from asking “Are you happy?”
Sometimes my son smiles and easily says “yep” and other times it becomes a conversation that teaches me so much about him and his struggles. Those times he often starts by saying “well when x happened it made me sad.”
X can be anything from my mom’s dog passing to that he lost a dollar. Sometimes the thing that made him sad was getting in trouble and sometimes it’s because he has felt a little left out with a new baby monopolizing so much of our time.
No matter how big or small the issue, the important thing is he feels comfortable sharing it with me. We discuss why that makes him sad and we try to come up with a plan to deal with the situation. In this “safe space” I have been able to discuss with my son that those we love are always with us even once they are in heaven. We made plans to have mommy son sleepover nights. We helped make his 6 year old life a little better.
A Framework For the Future
Today the vast majority of his problems are small and fairly easily solved. But fast forward ten years and our young children will be teens, They will face things at school we won’t be able to understand because we didn’t face the same struggles when we were that age.
Do you want them to trust you enough to let you in?
Do you want them to know you are always there to listen and offer advice?
As so many parents realize later in life, once your kids face problems with far more consequences than a lost dollar bill they don’t want to let you in. By creating a time to share and vocalize problems and feelings while they are still little you are building an irreplaceable framework. You are helping them learn not only that they can trust you and that you are always there to help but also how to vocalize problems in a healthy way to others. I think we can all agree that these are pretty important life skills.
Do You Know You Are Loved?
Explaining why I ask this one is harder.
You and I both know we love our children to the ends of this earth. We say it a hundred times daily so surely they know it too, right?
My Parents did tell me they loved me but there were times I had a hard time accepting that when I was younger. There were times I doubted this fundamental truth especially if I knew they didn’t approve of the way I had been acting or something I had done.
By asking my son if he knows he is loved I hope to emphasize in a different way that he is very much loved while also allowing him to express why at times he may not “feel” that he is. I want to be able to discuss that while certain choices may frustrate me or make me concerned, my love for him never wavers.
I want him to feel secure in that he is loved.
I’m sure as time goes on I may find myself asking different questions tailored to his age. For now I rest a bit easier knowing that he knows he can turn to me in these little pow-wows. That he can tell me anything and that I am always here to help.
