If you’re always wondering how you can improve your parenting / grandparenting, consider these questions that you can ask the kids when the come home from school. Try these rather than the very vague “How was your day?”.
- What made you smile today?
- Can you tell me an example of kindness you saw today?
- What did you do that was creative?
- Who did you sit with at lunch?
- Was anyone in your class gone today?
- Tell me something you know today that you didn’t know yesterday.
- What was the hardest rule to follow today?
- If you could change one thing about your day, what would it be?
- What made your teacher smile?
- Did anything make your teacher frown today?
- If you could switch seats with anyone in class, who would it be? Why?
- What kind of person were you today?
This brings out some discussion points we should probably consider about ourselves. What kind of conversations do we have? Are they ones that make everyone want to go outside, close the door, and not listen to your gloom and doom? Do all of your sentences start with “I”? Yawn.
There are some people who are good to have conversations with. You can tell who they are, because people gather around them. And there are people who are great listeners. You can tell them because people gather around them, too. Those are the sort of things that we can aspire to be better at.
If you are at a loss for small talk, maybe with people you don’t know, ask them something about themselves. And then listen to their answer. It works wonders. People usually like to talk about themselves. And you might find something you have in common and find a new friend.
Go visit or read about somewhere that is interesting. Find one fun fact about where you visited (not the food, please) and have it to tell. Leave out the itinerary though (that’s what I tend to tell).
Talk about something that is coming up and is going to be fun. Like the Christmas Tree Lighting on Dec. 8. You know, those happen when it starts to get dark. Hope to see you there! It happens at the Texas County Courthouse.
I like the conversations that the veterans banners have opened up. I love having them hanging on the street. I think if you have a veteran in your family, you should think about maybe getting them a banner. Call Jim Norris at 580-651-1018. If you want to look at Guymon’s banners, go to www.troopbanners.com and hit Guymon.
And remember, the person who speaks about things in a positive manner is much more interesting than the one who is critical.
Now, go downtown and catch a conversation with someone!
See you on the bricks.