HOW WAS YOUR DAY?

So yesterday,  a friend reminded me that as a parent you have to stay involved. Be engaged.

It isn’t always that easy.

There are teachers and administrators who believe it is there job to separate you from your children, because you are holding them back.

There are perfectly normal developmental phases where children clam up to individualize.

So here is my tip.

Ask your kids to tell you about their day.

I am sure that you, like me, ask “how is your day?” and your kids says “fine” and you say “good”.

This was my story until I heard a man on TV tell a story about getting busted by his dad, a teacher, for skipping school.

His father would ask this man and siblings about each class.  So on this occasion the father asked how was English Lit, and the man related a variation of what had happened the day before.  What he didn’t know was that the English Lit teacher who was pregnant,  was planning to be away and had given the “substitute” all her lesson plans. The father was to be substitute teaching the class.

Now, I haven’t substituted in nearly 3 decades, so I don’t  have that kind of info, but I do know how to read a syllabus and reading list.

Everyday, I asked my kids… how was your day? What happened in Homeroom? How is Mr. Davis, is he still limping?

Class by class,

subject by subject,

teacher by teacher,

friend by friend

At first it was painful, but then I learned the names and stories and personalities of the people involved.

It became a conversation.

And as my children got older, the conversation became more and more two-way.

They would ask and hear about my day.

My goal as a parent is to put myself out of a job.

To raise people into adults that I would want to be friends with. Adults you love and respect me but don’t need me.