30 Questions to Ask Your Kid Instead of “How Was Your Day?”

Posted on by metroupe

My friend Katie shared this article with me. It is simple but still good. It might not seem like a big deal at first. But these discussions about how to do something simple, like talk with your kids, are important because it is easy to try,  and fail. Try again, fail again. And then give up. Sometimes perseverance combined with a little wisdom can win the day.

Mark it down, having lots of conversations with your kids should be at the very top of your priority list.  This might be the key (in broad terms) to raising your kids. It is not a silver bullet, but it is probably the next best thing.  Talk to them about everything. Mingle it with love, grace and truth. Sadly, most of us are looking for something more expensive, and more exotic, more worthy of social media. But the best things in life often seem ordinary.  Your kids don’t need more activities, and more technology. They need more time with you. The Bible is clear on this in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which basically says we are to be talking with our kids all the time (and especially talking to them about God).

Sadly, many of us give people in lab coats more weight than scripture.  But in this regard, they have come to similar conclusions.  Talking with your children is good for them (and for you!).  It will help them build relationships, grow in emotional intelligence (and this article too), develop language skills,  improve school performance, etc.

By the way, you need to build a conversational relationship with your kids before major problems enter your household, and they will.  This means you need to do this before the teen years arrive. And you need to maintain this relationship during the teen years. If you regularly talk to your kids– all the time– then when they fail a test, get in a fight, crash the car, try out drugs, look at porn, (and fill in whatever other parenting nightmares you have) then you already have a well worn pathway to help shepherd them through the problems they are facing.

And yet…. talking with our children can be hard work. It can be draining to push for a conversation when they don’t want to talk.

Well, don’t give up… Try some of these. It is a silly list, but fun. There is much more to be said.

This one was one of my favorites:

“8. Which one of your teachers would survive a zombie apocalypse? Why?”

Source: 30 Questions to Ask Your Kid Instead of “How Was Your Day?”

THOSE Neanderthals Have An Ideology. I’m Glad I Don’t

Posted on by metroupe

pointing

It seems obvious when “extremists” kill or coerce in the name of their ideology. It looks crazy to us because we believe differently. But to the extremist, their ideology is reality.  Their view of the world is not a belief system. They see the world as it is.  One of the reasons they are dangerous is that they are blind to the fact that they even have an ideology.

And this isn’t just the obvious extremists (like say radical Islam), this is the U.S.A. too, right? Don’t we have an ideology that we push? And I don’t just mean conservatives.

It is easy to dismiss the idea of “belief” and “ideology” as dangerous.

John Mayer’s song “Belief” sings this. Belief is what makes for irrational wars. Belief is what puts 100,000 children in the sand. Belief is what kills, and we can never win if “belief is what we’re fighting for.” I actually like the song a lot. But not the message. It’s hypocritical. It’s blind. “Those people have an ideology. Glad I don’t.”

It’s dangerous (and arrogant) when you don’t see your own ideology.  But everyone has a philosophy, a belief, a value system that we use to interpret the world. And it is dangerous when we accuse “them” of living for their beliefs, but are blind to our own.

The real struggle is not between those with beliefs and those without them.  The struggle in our world is a conflict of ideas.

The real struggle is not between those with beliefs and those without them.  The struggle in our world is a conflict of ideas. Of truth, of facts, of reason, of coherency, of wisdom.  And as long as we acknowledge this, there is room for discussion. But when we refuse to acknowledge our own assumptions (“ideology”) we write “them” off for their beliefs. THEY are wrong by definition because they are following an ideology. Not me. I just see the facts. At this point civil dialogue is no longer possible.   Isn’t it ironic that the one who laughs at all the blind men groping around the elephant doesn’t question his own eyesight.

One of the marks of an extremist (or bully, or fool) in the making is that they don’t see or acknowledge that their view of the world is an ideology.  If you try to reason with them, they will dismiss what YOU say. They might attack YOU with words (or worse) for being a blind zealot.

People that acknowledge their own world view,  are in a position to appreciate it and reason with others.

Photo by a2gemma, used by permission. Some rights reserved.