A typical 4 year old, if there is such a thing, has a
vocabulary of about 1500 words – impressive in such a short space of time. So
you would think that by the teenage years their eloquence would extend beyond
“No, uh, M-u-m and what?” All the rich tapestry of the English language laid
out before them and it is reduced to a smattering of mumbles, when pushed, and
a string of hashtags or a winky face emoji as their thumbs work overtime on
their stream of messages in one online chat forum or another. It seems at times that they have entered some secret club
that you, as the parent, can only view from the outside. They certainly don’t
want to engage in conversation about their daily activities and if you do hear
them speaking, it’s often in some new and strange language that I won’t
embarrass myself now by attempting to quote any examples from. There’s nothing
worse than a Mum trying to be ‘down with the kids’ and I’m sure we all remember
the cringing feelings when our parents attempted to be cool in front of our
teenage friends, way back when.
Now my kids have entered this teenage and beyond phase, it
can be with some regret that I nostalgically look back on their toddler years –
the time when they asked questions every single minute of the day – and think
why didn’t I appreciate the value of this at the time? Why? That’s what my
children asked constantly – why is this or that the way it is? At the time, it
is easy to pass off questions with a quick response to close down their line of
enquiry or to think if only they could be quiet for just an hour so I can drift
off mentally to a place of peace and quiet. But at that point in time, to them
you are the font of all knowledge and this doesn’t last for long. How many
times more recently have I heard them scoff “Mum, don’t you know what that is?”
Perhaps our household has always been a chatty place. As my
two children grew up they were always included in conversation around the dinner
table and although encouraged to wait their turn and be polite enough to listen
to others, they knew their opinion and contributions would be valued. I
recently came across a quote which I find poignantly significant at this time
in my life:
“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell
you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they
are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to
them all of it has always been big stuff.”
(Catherine M Wallace)
Joking aside, I am grateful that my kids – who are mostly
grown-up now – do still want to talk to me when they have something on their
minds. There has been a patch where this was difficult, where the adolescent
hormones combined with diagnosed anxiety and depression in such a way that it
felt almost impossible for one of my children to speak to me. Almost 18 months
of talk therapy and a whole heap of hard work by the family have helped to
address this and I’m feeling that we are now sharing things again. Whether this
sharing has been little or big stuff, and some of it has indeed been big stuff,
it is worth remembering that the seemingly small step taken to talk about it
has been a gigantic leap of faith in making the decision to do so.
And what about me? How am I in conversation? The phrase –
“Do you have time for a chat?” conjures up different connotations for me, some
negative and others positive. If you’re called into your line manager’s office
for a chat, it’s rarely to be about the latest developments on a TV programme
or to plan a social event together. Sometimes I will send a message to my
husband via text / messenger and receive the reply “Let’s chat about it later.”
I know that means that the subject matter is going to be up for lengthy debate
later and neither of us are sure what the outcome may be.
Meeting a friend for a chat might go one of many ways. Often
it is because one or both of us need the space to unleash all the niggles that
have been grinding us down over the last months and say them out loud to
someone that we know will listen and not judge. Other times, amongst the
niggles, is a bigger, more demanding problem that needs airing and a friend can
be the support mechanism for this. Food, drink and chatting with friends can help
to make the world a better place, even if only for that moment in time.
A chat about no particular thing is also a great form of
therapy – talk about whatever comes into your head first and just go with it.
To an outsider, I am sure that’s what a lot of my conversations with friends
look like. But the process of this - being with good company, those with shared
interests and common experiences - that is a great recipe for a successful chat
session. Sometimes you don’t even have to say out loud what is really troubling
you – the random other bits of chat act as a cover or code and those who know
you well, know to keep that going so that you can process the difficult stuff
and everyone in the room knows that’s just what you needed.
And now I come to group chats – you know the ones you can
set up on Messenger? I’m quite the technophobe, in fact setting up my writing
into a blog was a challenge for me and one for which I had to call upon the
support of a tech-savvy friend to complete. Is it a good thing that we have the
technology available to be able to hold a multi-way conversation without any
need for the physical presence of those people in the room?
Group chats have been great when trying to organise a social
event or give details for rehearsals to the whole drama group that I am part
of. Sometimes, a couple of members of the group chat divert from the intended
point of the original message and if you weren’t online at the time you open
the chat to a stream of comments, thumbs up signs and GIFs that you have to
scroll through, emphasising just how late you were to this party chat!
It is true that I am guilty of holding several group chats
at once and then I really have to be awake and aware of which comments I am
sending to who. It would be difficult to explain a flirty message intended for
your husband to a group set up with work colleagues about an important meeting
in the schedule.
However, I have found myself checking my chats daily and it
has been good to be able to access advice from friends when I have needed it or
to check where my family members are and whether they are intending on being
home for dinner. The benefit over texts being that I can at least see that they
have received a message, even if they choose not to respond.
I don’t think electronic chat can replace the real thing
though, for all the reasons I’ve explored already. To talk to each other, in
person, face-to-face is to be human and individual amongst the daily crowd of
automatic responses and faceless encounters. “Do you have time for a chat?”
Always, for my family, my friends, I will always make time.
What do you think about the social media opportunities for chat and how our children engage with these?
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