Want your kids to talk to you?

“Why won´t my kids talk to me?”

My question is: “Do you really want your kids to talk to you and if so, are you showing them you care?”

This is something I had to genuinely ask myself and I wasn’t satisfied with my answer.

One of the most common desires I hear from parents these days is that they want their kids to open up and talk to them more. You may naturally assume that this desire applies solely to teenagers, but even parents of 4 and 5 year olds would love to have their children regularly engage in healthy dialogue with them.

Maybe you’ve found yourself in this boat and are looking for a lifeline, but how do you do it?

Opportunities for engagement

“I think my daddy is really cool. I like to hang out with him and watch cartoons. He has a weenie too, so sometimes, I like to talk to him about my weenie.”

These are a few lines from my children’s book, The Weenie Book, where a five-year-old boy named Gabriel has a lot of questions about his private parts, which his father is able to lovingly and confidently answer.

If only it were as easy as Gabriel Green’s dad makes it look. You sit down with your kid, watch some cartoons, and suddenly your kid opens up and tells you his deepest thoughts and problems. That’s nothing but a storybook relationship, right?

Well, what if I were to tell you that it’s not? If you want your children to engage in conversation with you (something that is important to you), you need to first engage in an activity that is important to them.

Watching cartoons with our kids seems easy enough, right?

Sitting there patiently, looking at them in the eyes while they eat their snack is easy enough, right?

Getting on the floor and building the most awesome race track ever and racing cars with your son is easy enough, right?

Plopping your rear end down in a tiny toy chair while your four-year-old daughter serves you imaginary gourmet tea is easy enough, right?

Lying in bed with your child, reading a story, and praying together just before “lights out” is easy enough, right?

When kids feel comfortable or are enjoying themselves, they naturally and almost automatically open up. Many parent press and prod their children for information at the wrong times. If only they knew how easy it is to get what you need when they get what they need.

Opportunities for distraction

All of the suggestions mentioned above may sound easy, but if you are like me, actually walking them out is one the hardest areas of parenting! When I try to engage in these activities with my kids, more often than not I am distracted and pulled away by what almost seems to be a magical force: my cell phone.

When my cell phone is present while I am with my kids, that makes me an absent father. I may not be physically absent, but I am at the very least mentally absent. I try to deny it, but I know it’s true, and so does my wife.  What’s worst of all is that my kids know it too, and they are probably getting used to it.

I can’t stand it.

I want the days back without the internet on my cell phone (who uses their cell phone to talk these days?). I want the days back when I used to get down on the floor to play with my kids without constantly checking my email. I remember the walks in the park, when I just had one son, and I could hold my son’s hand and my wife’s hand at the same time. Now, a lot of times I can’t hold anyone’s hand because they are both occupied by my cell phone.

Sure, I’m not all bad. Every once in a while I will actually leave the cell phone in the other room and concentrate on the matter at hand with my kids.  But then, sometimes I get so excited about the moment that I have to run and get my cell phone, take a picture, and put it on Facebook for everyone else to see.  #momentdestroyed

Of course once the picture is on Facebook I have to keep looking at my cell phone to see how many likes it gets or to read the comments people make about how great a dad I am for playing with my kids. Then, since I’m already on my cell phone, why not check my email?  Oh, I got a new email that I probably should respond to it right now, but it will take only a minute.  Done! Buzz!!! Oh, someone else made a comment on the photo! Let’s see who.

It all began so innocently but led to a breakdown in the emotional communication that my kids needed from me in order to feel loved and accepted enough to communicate their thoughts and feelings.

Oh, how I long to be different. These moments may be captured and recorded on Facebook, but what about the moments that are being captured and recorded in my kids’ memories?

This is a real struggle for me, as it undoubtedly is for many parents today. The question is, do you want to change?

Opportunities for change

Gabriel Green’s dad may be a fictional character from my book, “The Weenie Book”, but he does represent the ideal of what I aspire to be as a father. He is the dad I never had, and the dad I long to be.

So I have made the decision today that Gabe’s dad is the kind of dad I AM going to be.

I make this decision not just for the sake of being able to get short-term results (i.e. nice conversations with my sons), but also for the sake of establishing a healthy relationship with my kids that will last well into their adulthood.

So, whenever I’m with my kids, that means “Goodbye, cellphone!” or as they say here in Chile, “Hasta la vista, cell phone!”

What keeps you and your kids from communicating? Sound off below.

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