Have a conversation with your children; consider some questions you’d want to ask but were afraid. It is very likely your adult children will be eager to [finally] have this conversation.
Inspiration:
In the Summer of 2018 I took a course on Child Theology at Regent College with Dr. James M. Houston, It inspired me to put together a series of questions to ask my adult children. Since I had not had a chance to do this with either of my parents I was eager to start a conversation of things left unsaid, of topics not spoken:
Encouragement:
Let me encourage you, if you are a parent of a certain age, and if you have adult children near or estranged, to start a conversation of healing. There is nothing particularly special about these questions – they just started us off:
Questions:
- What is your first memory as a child?
- What is your most painful memory as a child?
- What is your best memory as a child?
- What do you wish did not happen to you as a child?
- What did you need – but didn’t get as a child?
- How would you describe your childhood?
- What would you like to say about your childhood:
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- to your parents?
- to God?
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- How does your childhood inform:
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- your adulthood?
- your parenthood?
- your spiritual journey?
- your marriage?
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Let me know how it goes; and let me know if you came up with some other/better questions.
Grace to you as you continue to relate to your children over the ages.
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