Creative Conversation

One of the most enjoyable things I get to do regularly is hear my 3 year old daughter, Noel, have conversations with herself and some of her many animal toys she owns. Her conversations are sometimes short and always innocently sweet... often like:

SHEEP 1: "Will you be my best friend?"
SHEEP 2: "Ok!"
SHEEP 1: "Let's go find horse to play with us."

Yesterday, she had quite the story going on as she sat in the car on the ride home from our quick trip to Sedona. Luckily, my kids are very good in the car, and can be easily entertained with a stuffed animal and a few books.

It sometimes catches me off guard when I hear her say something exactly how I say it...with my same tone and pronunciation and everything. It lets me know she listens and a lot of what we talk about really is absorbed.
At what age do we start losing our ability to shut up and just listen?

It seems our lips start to override our ears, and if Ive learned one thing from my husband during his 2 years as a successful Marine Corps recruiter, it's that listening is often the best way to learn who you are talking to and realizing what they need.

How often do you talk with your kids?

I am not meaning talking at your kids, but with your kids.
You know, a mixture of talking AND listening back and forth.

What do you talk about?

My days usually start by asking Noel what her dreams were about. It never fails that she says "dogs and cats". I always ask just to hear if she will say something different.

Kids need someone who care to listen. Heck, even adults need people to listen too.

While in Sedona this week, I CAME across the toy store I love, and found a fun deck of cards called the"Chat Pack for Kids". These packs of cards are packaged by people with disabilities, and meant to spark ideas, learning and conversation.

In this stack, 156 inventive questions are just waiting to be asked.
These would be great as a gift to a teacher who teaches grades where students need creative writing exercises, or just imaginative conversation within the classroom. As a family, use them around the dinner table, or just random chatting on car trips.

Try to put away the IPADS, cell phones and other hand held junk for a minute and talk.

As I flipped through the deck, here are just a few of the questions that I found to be really fun:

"If you could go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning older than you are, what age would you want to be when you open your eyes?"

________________

"If you could personally see the highest, longest, or largest of anything in the world, what would you want to see most of all?"

_________________

"If you could permanently eliminate one color from the world, which color would it be?"

__________________

"Which cartoon character do you think would be the most fun to hang out with for an afternoon?"

___________________

Well, I could list many more, but I think someone will just have to see these for themselves. When I decide to do another giveaway, I think this is what I will have to give.

I hope you take the time to pause, put away the distractions you have from talking with your kids- or even your spouse. At every age, people want to know others really listen and care.
Why do you think bloggers write blogs? They don't do it for typing practice, that's for sure.

Talk WITH your kids today!

And just for fun...I think one of my top picks for a cartoon to spend the day with would have to be SNOOPY! He seems to have the life.
In Sedona we saw Snoopy Rock, so I just had to throw this in here ;)

See the resemblance??