Getting Parents and Kids Talking
Today’s guest blog post is by Jay Clark and Katye Dunn, Youth Ministers at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. Pulaski Heights was part of our 2011 Sticky Faith Cohort. We at FYI often hear from churches who want to give Confirmation a Sticky Faith spin, so we asked Jay and Katye to share a few of their ideas.
Yesterday we shared some ideas from our overall confirmation program. Today we have one more idea that has helped us involve parents, or specifically that has helped us get parents and their kids talking to one another.
Knowing that it can be hard for parents and their teenagers to ask one another good quetsions, we send out lists of questions--100 each for parents and for kids (we borrowed them from Family Education; these lists are free online here and here). These permission-giving questions are for young people to ask their parents and parents to ask their children. This is a family exercise. Some of the questions are tough, but we encourage tough questions, sometimes with no really good answer. Of course, passing is always an option. We want this to encourage dialogue with parents and their children. Sometimes, topics require permission to be given before it is okay to talk about certain things. Here are the rules:
1. No answer is stupid. No grimacing, eye rolling, or in any way laughing at someone unless they are saying something funny.
2. Everyone gets to answer without interruption. Follow-up questions are allowed ("But I thought you liked beets!"), but follow-up answers aren't required. "Nope" will suffice (as an answer to the follow-up). However, if the person wants, they can do a whole riff on the history of beet hating – you asked, after all.
3. Questions that hit a recent sore spot should be avoided if at all possible. For example, if your child has just missed making the team or been dumped by a major heartthrob, you might want to avoid those kinds of questions the first couple of times you play the game (unless you think he or she wants to talk about love and its disappointments).
4. Everyone is, in fact, allowed to avoid two questions per game – more if they really insist upon it. This has to be fun, remember? Better to lose one answer than to lose their interest and confidence in the whole game.
Read more on FamilyEducation: http://life.familyeducation.com/communication/family-time/36021.html#ixzz1maXCC8v7
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