At dinner time making it into a game with questions in a jar occasionally it perks things up.
Class member: I purchased “Talk Time”. My 15 year old went through and did about half of them with me. I think he liked asking me the questions. I carry them in my purse now.
Class member: We do “Would you rather…” games. They think it’s hilarious things. My kids are 7 and 12. My 12 year old is a young 12 year old. We just played that sentence game. We make stories. There is no paper needed. You just build the story. They don’t mind being at the dinner table hanging out.
Use communication to create closeness.
Class member: I discovered I’m a fixer. Both my daughters would come home and try to tell me about problems with friends. It was so hard to not jump in and give excuses and reasons. I try to explain the friends point of view and that’s not helpful. I caught myself doing some things.
To me if that’s all you did this was realize some of the thing you were doing wrong or some voids that’s great. The first step is to figure out where you are. Then find some tools to get you where you want to be.
Class member: We had a disastrous week. I am a fixer. I have started saying, “I see you are frustrated.” I’m started using single words…one word answers. I acknowledged their feelings and just let it be.
You feel like you are biting your tongue.
Class member: Someone suggested reading “How to talk so your kids can listen and listen so your kids can talk.” It has helped me communicate better.
Those of you with kids 12 and under do it now. Get that communication going well now. After 14 it’s harder, but still do-able.
One of the stories that grabs my heart is the story of the Savior when he goes to raise Lazarus from the dead. He intentionally went and raised him from the dead. He intentionally waited the 4 days so it would be a real miracle. They said, “If you had been here.” The first thing he did was weep with them. He knew he would fix it, but he wept with them first. It’s the listening first. He could have said, “It’s ok we will go take care of it.”, but he wept with them and then performed the miracle.
Class member: My husband and I got in a huge big fight about how to discipline our children. We’ve never argued before. We’ve been on the same page. It was pretty ugly. It’s not resolved yet. We are still working on it.
Next week we will do marriage.