Today is National Communicate With Your Kids Day !

     Communicate With Your Kids Day highlights the importance of having open and honest conversations with your kids.

     As a School Counselor, I believe that it is super important to have daily chats about the little stuff so that the foundation already exists when there's a need to discuss the bigger stuff.

     Communicating with your child lets them know that you value their thoughts and feelings.  This can help them to develop better self-esteem.  BONUS - it also helps them to practice their communication skills, which has shown to help children be more successful in careers as adults.

     But...... Let's be honest !   Prying kids away from their electronics to talk with their parents ??  Yeah - we can all see the eye-rolls already !   And while we're having Real Talk - I know that no one has extra time each day in our over-scheduled lives.  I get it.

     So here's the good news!  Communication doesn't always have to be serious.  It can be light and easy (and even fun!)   And it doesn't have to take a lot of time.  It just has to be part of the routine. 

     One easy idea is to have them pick 1 question each day that they can ask you in the 10 minute car ride home from practice (and then they answer too).  Questions can be deeper like "What was the first betrayal you experienced?"   OR questions can be super silly like "Would you rather have flippers for arms, or a beak for a mouth?"  Let them be in control of the topics if it helps.

     I find that incorporating games is an easy way to get kids talking too.  Below are 2 games that you can play to help start the conversations.

• Click here for UNO prompts.
  • Each card has 2 question options.  So if you put down a Blue 8, the person putting the card down has to answer one of the questions listed next to the 8 on the Blue Page.  Play Uno as you normally would.  :-) 
• Click here for M&M prompts.
  • Give each "player" a pile of M&M's.  Players must choose from one of the question prompts and answer the question for each color that they eat (1 at a time).
  • This can be easily switched to other foods/colors like Starburst, Skittles, Jelly Beans, etc depending on food allergies and preferences.

HAVE FUN !!
 

I can't take credit for creating these all from scratch - but I thought it would be nice to share helpful ideas from creative people all in one place.