How to Become a Better Audience for the Interests of an Older Child
A friend of mine has a son who, at the age of three, became addicted to watches. In particular, his jam was a traditional wall clock, and before she knew about it, she found out and bought all kinds of antique clocks to decorate their home.
When our children are young, immersion in their interests is almost inevitable. Whatever arouses their curiosity – be it bugs, trains, unicorns or garbage trucks – we are their guide to information. We read all dinosaur books or learn more about fire trucks than we ever thought, because they want to know every detail, and we want to support the fact that they want to learn.
We even tend to be more interested in their early classes because we take them to acrobatics or ballet lessons and stay to watch every last moment. We watch them learn to do the right roundhouse kick in their beginner karate class, and before we know it, we find ourselves copying this technique with them at home – not only because they enjoy it, but because it starts to become fun for us. too much.
However, as kids get older and start reading their books and playing their favorite games with friends (instead of us) and we start throwing them into lacrosse practice (instead of staying watching), it’s easy to lose that connection. … That’s why when I wrote about the tendency among teens to chat about, say, Minecraft, one of my tips was to play with them – because obviously they want to share it with you.
And then one of the commentators, @Khukhullatus , brought to the end of the idea , saying:
Almost any activity seems boring, wordy, and twisty if you’ve never done it, but if you understand the pain of a crawler destroying what you’ve worked on for hours, their stories may not seem so pointless. If you understand how exciting it is to catch a rare Pokemon, hearing that the one your child has been working on for several months has become an evolutionist suddenly becomes much more interesting.
Try with everything. When my brothers and I became interested in hockey, my father, who never played, watched or cared about sports, signed up for our assistant coach and played in the adult beginner league, in which there were games immediately after ours. He was from Southern California, I think his first game may have been within his first ten skating times, but the sudden discussions about the rather boring details of who’s legs doing what against the boards became a lot for him. closer.
I don’t think parents need to physically start out in every sport their kids have ever played, but learning about their interests – be it saxophone, gymnastics, Dungeons & Dragons, break dance, horror movies, or whatever – helps. remind older children that you care about what they care about. If they enjoy playing it, learn the rules and ask them to play with them. If they enjoy watching, curl up on the couch next to them. If it’s a certain type of music, listen to it. If they enjoy playing sports or activities, take the front seat.
Just listening to them talk about it is great too, but when you know a little something about it, you ask more thoughtful questions and the conversation becomes more enriching for both of you. And most importantly, it signals to them that if it’s interesting or fun enough to keep them interested, you should also take the time to learn about it.