Sometimes Life gets in the way of “good” parenting. Between work, dinner, and bedtime my kids only get to spend about an hour with their dad and me each night. I’ll be honest, both of my kids would rather spend that hour playing with their friends or watching TV than engaging in any of the quality time activities I see in parenting books or websites.
Reminding myself that doing the best I can is good enough helps, but I still feel guilty for not being able to check off the laundry list of things parents “should” do. Luckily, every once in a while, I get a reminder that they’re going to be just fine despite my lack of star parenting.
One such reminder came last weekend. My son is reading “The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate in class. I tried to talk to him about it – does he like that it’s narrated by a gorilla? What does he think about a gorilla being best friends with an elephant and a dog? – but got nowhere. Finally, I decided to download the audiobook from the library and listen to the same section he was assigned to read.
When I mentioned that I’d started the book, he looked up from his video game and said, “Really?” and then, miraculously, we had a conversation about the book! My son is a pretty reluctant reader, so having this conversation made my heart full! Not only did he read, he talked to me about it! Parenting win!
I’m not holding my breath that this will repeat itself, but you bet I’m going to keep reading what he’s reading in the hopes that we can make a connection again!
Our selection of materials in the Graham Community Building (opening March 1) is about a quarter of what we had on Graham Ave, but our entire digital collection is still available on the Libby/Overdrive app. If you need help using it, stop by and we’ll walk you through it.