Mission: Get Kid Intel
Three quarters of my family are now all in therapy. As you know I am one of those quarters and am still really benefiting. Therapy for all! Maybe I will get us matching t-shirts…
One of my kids had a decent amount of paperwork to complete in preparation for their first appointment. It’s all done in a portal so I said to them, “Hey we need to answer these questions. How about I’ll ask and then you tell me your answers and I’ll enter them for you.”
For some of the questions I had a sense of what the answers would be and I was on track. Though for several I was totally surprised by my kid’s responses. I was thankful that my child answered these all with honesty and seemed to have no problem with me knowing what they thought. (Please note this was a hold your face moment so that they would keep sharing.)
After we clicked “submit” and went on with our evening routine my mind kept returning to this experience. It was very interesting to hear this kid’s interpretation of family life, their sibling relationship, and their assessment of their relationships with me and their dad. Thanks to this form I was able to get insight to some pretty deep thoughts I otherwise would not have likely ever been privy to.
But then I thought, “How can I get this intel again?”
This made me think of our most recent podcast episode, where our guest, Carl, shared about how he wishes he could go back and talk with his daughter and ask, “What's good in your life? What are the things you like best? What stinks? What scares you? What can I do to help?”
He said he wished he could go back just to do more talking and listening. As I listened to Carl speak I thought to myself, “Wow. I want to know these things now. Do I know these things? Do I ask these things?”
The answer is…kind of? I know the preferred activities and favorite foods of my kids without question. But I would really like to set an intention to ask more of these “intel” questions…without having a first therapy appointment to be the trigger. My first action to take with this is buying these conversation cards we can use at dinner. It’s a simple thing to do a few times a week that may give some insight to all that is churning in their brains (and vice versa for me and my husband to share our thoughts too).
This experience taught me that my kids (all kids?) don’t miss a beat. That whole “kids are like sponges" is true. They are sucking up all the said and unsaid things happening and if I can get a peek into their thoughts, I want to do it while I can.