Thursday, 13 September 2018

Time for a Chat.


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.





 Have you ever been caught out in a group chat?

What do you think about the social media opportunities for chat and how our children engage with these?



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