posted by Jessica Lynette on Family

3 comments

I have often thought that if I could afford it I’d love to hire interesting people to come and sit and talk with my children daily- expanding my boys worlds through their own experiences and stories and giving me a break from conversation.

It gets exhausting trying to meaningfully converse with my boys all day long, so hiring an interesting conversationalist to sit with my kids for 1-2 hours a day would be the top job I would chose to hire help for!

Since hiring someone to come and sit and talk to them isn’t in the budget we do the second best thing – we invite lots of people over for meals and include our boys in the process.

Our boys {and our!} lives have been enriched by the fellowship we have shared and the relationships that have grown over simple meals around our dining room table.

I appreciate that most of the grown ups that come through our doors enjoy taking the time to ask the boys questions and to answer questions posed to them. These people are helping to teach our children the art of conversation. An art that is fast fading and yet sorely needed.

One way we have sought to encourage our boys to develop meaningful conversations {as opposed to their go-to routine of muscle flexing and talking about their diet of eggs and passing around a measuring tape for unsuspecting guests to then measure their muscles – no joke!} is to prepare them with questions that they can use as a spring board to get to know the guests better.

We spent a few minutes coming up with questions they thought would be interesting to hear about – and included small graphics on the question cards so that they can “read” the cards themselves. They have been such a hit!! The only thing I am going to do differently is make a more permanent set of these cards so we can keep them forever.

 

 

 

Tags: activity, children, family, meal