Teachable Moments With Your Children - Do You Take Advantage of Them?

Do you take advantage of the teachable moments in your children’s lives? You should be. As they get older and really need to know what you think about important issues like drugs, alcohol, smoking, and sex they tend to be more difficult to talk to. By the time you really need to talk to them and the need to know what you think and need some guidance, they often think that they already have all the answers. So, the key is to start earlier by taking advantage of teachable moments.

What are teachable moments? Those are the time when you are with your kids and a subject matter comes up where you insert some casual comments that can open up to an actual conversation, either then or later in the future. It can either grow into a full blown conversation where questions are asked and answered or experiences are shared. The important thing is that your child gets some input that they might not have gotten otherwise.

Some examples of teachable moments:
• You’re watching television and someone is smoking, drinking, or doing drugs
• Commercials
• Being out in public and seeing graffiti on a wall
• Hearing about something that happened to someone in their school
• Listening to the radio
• Jokes

Teachable moments can at arise at any place and any time so be aware of them. Watch for them and be ready for them by doing research ahead of time and knowing what kind of information you want your kids to have. Know what you think about issues likes teen sex, drugs, drinking, and smoking and think of ways to say it without pointing fingers at them. After all, they haven’t done anything at this point – you just want to do some preventative action.

published 2 years ago

DMcGaw

731 points