Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:02
Can you think of a topic that you find REALLY HARD to discuss with your kids and why?
This is question number five in the series Voices Up on Parents this week, and it's about asking you to think of a topic that you find really hard to discuss with your kids and why you feel that way. And again, if you are a child of a two year old or a 19 year old or someone who parented years ago, we just want to hear what hits you when you hear that question. What topic makes you feel uncomfortable and did you bust through that already?
They would see things, they would hear things, and they will ask me, and I would do the best I can by answering as honest as possible, but not letting their imagination at a young age go off the deep end. And as they got older, a lot of stuff started to be more displayed and they understood why it was going on. And that's because of the life that I live in my house. I live my life specifically for God
Raquel Reyes-Aguilar
@RAQsICT · 3:40
And he's like, Yeah, that's true. And my ten year old, I can't believe I'm having this conversation with my ten year old, because if it was me at ten years old with my mom, this is something that she would not discuss with me. So number one, and maybe somebody else can answer my question. Is that right? Is that a good thing that I sat down with him or not that I sat down with him, but that we discussed that?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:27
Hey, Crystal and Mikel, thank you both so much for responding to this. I think the theme here is that there is ample space to invite the messiness because it's the conversation itself that can be informed by the wisdom of young kids that we don't ever underestimate because they're hearing and seeing and feeling way beyond the walls of the home
Katie Spottedcrow
@spottkat2u · 3:55
Just because I'm a child doesn't mean I don't comprehend things. And so that's where I'm kind of coming from as far as questions that I'm dreading to say to my child. I don't think I'm dreading really anything
Erika Schon
@Riki · 1:59
I have kids, and certainly I know that we will not always agree, but we will respect each other's positions, and the dynamic around the table as we sit, converse about things should always be respectful, honorable and friendly, and that would be a good space to start with. So that's it. In an ideal world, we will all speak to our children often and in depth, and encourage conversations about the most difficult topics
Tam Tran
@WellnessCoach · 3:05
And so I want to model that for my kids, because if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling angry, it's a sign that something is not right in your body, and it's, like, out of alignment
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 2:20
Of course, there are certain things that are just not their business, so we won't ever discuss those things anyway. But most topics I don't have any problems with, especially depending on the age, if they're little kids and they're faced with some type of dilemma or some type of problem or they heard something or don't know what something means, I'll explain it to them. And I've never really talked to my kids like they were babies
Parenting. No, I'm just kidding. It's whoo I like. What? I like all the comments before me. They're very, very well stated. It kind of makes me nervous because I'm not the best speaker or keeping my thoughts together there. But it's so hard and it's so rewarding and it's so heartbreaking. I have an eleven year old boy and a 14 year old girl. First of all, they're polar opposites. Of course
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:03
There's something that Mtois said relates me back to, Ah, the two of you talking about timing. He was mentioning that, you know, you don't talk to your kids like they're babies if they're not babies. And Owens, Wilson's, Nose, I forget your real name. But the sacred ground between you and your daughter talking about her private space and her relationship to her body and eating it, changes the dynamics between the two of you
Dee Lovegood
@dee.lovegood · 4:43
And so this is where I struggle, and I'd love to know how other parents are taking in the situation. I've had that talk with both my son and my daughter
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:55
But it's a conversation and there's examples, and that hopefully won't be real life examples, but I guess you can work with just sort of how complicated the world is. And police are one part of that complication. Yeah. The uniform is in front of a human, and that human could be flawed. Thank you for this. Thank you for this contribution
Dee Lovegood
@dee.lovegood · 3:53
And so that takes on a whole other level of protecting and serving and the intricacies and I guess the difficulty of serving and protecting, as well as the difficulty of being served and protected in those communities where it's not seen that way, it's not felt that way, and there sure is more than enough evidence to prove that otherwise as well. So I really do appreciate your understanding of the differences of what people go through as well as just understanding
Gary-Tyler Reyes
@thekidd_gt · 3:42
And I have to accept the fact that he's going to know those things, maybe not the same way that I did. I mean, although he's trying, he definitely won't, but he'll have an understanding. And with my perspective, hopefully he can learn from my mistakes. Hopefully. Buddy, you're hearing this at some point. But yeah, so that's pretty much where that's the topic, I guess. The family. How do I bring up the situation?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:59
And hearing it from you might help him skip over some stuff that he might want to experiment with or try and realize that dad did that and he taught me what the lessons are. So I don't know what the answer is, but I love that you're thinking about it, and I respect it's. Gravity for sure. So thank you for adding that it's really intense and really beautiful that you're thinking about it now
Gary-Tyler Reyes
@thekidd_gt · 1:51
I want to be a father of eight kids, all girls. But that's another topic. But yeah, so that's really why I tried to speak, because maybe he can hear this one day. And like you said, he can learn from my mistakes and listen to maybe my voice. Who knows what would happen one day? Who knows? If life is very short, you can go to bed one day and I'll wake up the next
Maegan Bean
@MomstheWord · 3:00
I think it's also a great way to frame something difficult, and that could apply to a lot of different topics that I would expect swell be mentioned in this thread. So I just wanted to say I think you did a great job, and I'm sure it's tricky to navigate those kinds of things given the religious background you described. So good job
Maegan Bean
@MomstheWord · 5:00
And from a child psychology perspective, what they feel when we do that is fear. They say, mom cannot even handle answering this question for me. How can she possibly handle this problem? How could I possibly handle this problem? So I just think if you can give them an answer often, that's how we deal with it. The only things that I have really found that are really hard for me to talk about with my child are things that are really hard for me emotionally
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:41
Wow. Thank you so much for those hacks. I want to repeat them. I know you just said them, but I want to repeat them because I think they're so helpful. And the first is, I don't know. What do you think? Engaging them, getting to understand where they are before you answer and get them to get the feelies out and express maybe why they asked the question in a way that you didn't understand before
Maegan Bean
@MomstheWord · 0:51
And at four, he's just old enough to kind of figure out the nuance there between the two. But it was a huge relief to me and felt like, okay, I knew how to move forward by hearing that he was just wondering and not worried. So hopefully that one can be helpful too
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:27
Oh, my God. I love words so much. And the nuance between worrying and wondering I mean, it's not even a nuance. It's a universe between them. You know, wondering is implying awe and and a certain relaxing into the process of knowing. But worrying is all with barbed wires and anxiety. Such a difference, and yet so beautiful. To posit that for such a young mind to think about oh, my God. So wonderful. Thank you for that
Ahead. So my oldest son is nine, and my husband adopted him a year after we got married. We've been married for four and a half years. My son I myself am I mixed German, Nigerian. My son, however, I'm on the fair side. My son, his paternal genetic makeup is just black, so he's more melanated than I am, which is beautiful. But for the longest time, he hated it
