Getting teenagers and stoic partners to share their days, thoughts and feelings has to be at the top of every mother's top 10 "things that make me nuts" lists. (I am sure it makes fathers and other guys nuts, too, but I'm talking about mothers right now.)
You know how it goes. "How was your day"? "Fine." "Anything interesting happen at work"? "Nah." "Are you OK"? "Sure." The series of yes-and-no questions that pass for conversation rarely end well. "You never talk to me." "You never stop nagging." Etc.
They are especially frustrating for talkers, those folks who like sharing. For the silent types, they probably are just fine, but then you'll never know what's really happening in your child's or partner's life.
So, what to do? Start by saying "I got on the bus...." (Two syllables for bus and a little uptalk at the end are nice touches.) Sharing each step of the day is bound to offer up a topic or two for conversation, especially if you ask a couple questions along the way. Like maybe, "so who'd you sit with on the bus and what did they say"?
We started asking the bus question of our then six-year-old son, and we continued to ask it as a teenager, when he went off to college (gaad, those dreadful, silent phone calls....), and occasionally even today. My mother and I exchange on-the-bus e-mails, long or short, chatty notes filled with the little things we're doing that day, a fleeting thought, a casual comment. We just start with "I got on the bus...."
Sounds goofy, I know. But it works. It has bee a rare occasion over 25 years that "I got on the bus..." failed to sustain a real conversation.
Few of us have newsworthy days and we assume we have nothing worth sharing. It's just so much effort to try to come up with something to talk about. Yet, it is the little stuff of an everyday that weaves itself into a life. Capturing those little things is important.
Try it. Just say "I got on the bus...."
