Want to know what your kids are thinking?

This post really isn’t about marriage or divorce or about family law matters at all. It’s really just a post about kids. I’ll start it with a personal story. The other day my oldest son came to me and said he wanted me to take him to a birthday party he was supposed to go to later. Only two problems with this: (1) we had already planned on his other mom taking him and (2) I did not want to go to the location of the birthday party. I started out by telling him no, that mama was going to take him and I was taking his brother somewhere else. What I failed to do initially is find out why he didn’t want mama to take him. After a minute I asked him why and his response surprised me. “Because I want to ride in the red car.” We easily remedied the situation by switching cars and everyone was happy. So much for thinking it was about spending time with me.

That one situation has caused me to start asking why more often. It doesn’t work very well with my two year old who just says, “Because why”. Why sometimes does not work with my five year old either and I have to ask more detailed questions. Such as this week when I asked him whether he wanted to stay home Thursday or Friday and he chose Friday. I asked him why he could not tell me but when I asked what he was going to do Friday at summer came he said, “it is water park day.”

Or how about the time my boys were racing their cars on the walls of the house instead of the racetrack? Only asking why did not work, but asking what they were trying to do brought out the “making an imaginary racetrack” response.

So when you want to know exactly what your kids are thinking, just ask them. Sometimes you have to ask the question in multiple ways, but eventually you will get to the root of what they are thinking. The most difficult part sometimes for me is trying to figure out different ways to ask them questions so that they will tell me, but the best part is watching them grow, learn and explore.