Do you have a co-worker who is so obsessed with one topic, they seem to live and breathe it? Like trains for instance? So, if your boss sends the two of you to a conference in the company car, what are you two going to talk about? If you’re smart, you’ll talk about trains, right?
Although your colleague may be an extreme example, talking about trains works for everyone. Well, maybe not trains specifically, but the idea of joining someone in their world first – with genuine curiosity. You might as well find a way to be interested, because your colleague is going to talk about trains for three hours up and back whether you want to or not. And you might be amazed that by the end of three hours, the train talk actually coincides with your interest in movies, like The Great Train Robbery, Some Like It Hot, and Murder on the Orient Express.
Join them in their world
This is a long-winded intro to the idea of joining your child in their world. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to pull them gently into your world. A boy who could care less about percentages and ratios, but is passionate about baseball may be eager to learn how to calculate batting averages and ERA’s. Keeping a child’s curiosity and passion alive is one of the greatest gifts we can give them; especially when school and life try to tell them what they should be interested in.
