Do you discuss things with your kids while reading?

March 19

This past Saturday morning my husband and I were in our kitchen, and in the middle of making a cup of coffee, apropos of nothing, he said to me, “One time we were outside of Baghdad and there was a sniper set up to guard us while we slept, and every so often you’d hear him pop off a bullet, all through the night. He was looking for the flash of eyes — trying to find warm bodies to put them out of their misery.”

I came to a complete stop; I did not move. These disclosures are so sporadic as to be almost nonexistent, and it still surprises me how they occur, how suddenly we can be talking, one of us anyway, about things that happened two decades ago like they occurred last Tuesday. I said slowly, “Were these people you’d injured? All of you?”

“Yeah,” he said, and went on to describe some sort of aircraft that had dropped some sort of weapon that had wreaked some sort of unimaginable human toll, all of which had led to another human awake all night, shooting people who were suffering, while my husband slept nearby, or tried to.

That was it, there was nothing more, and I didn’t ask where any of it came from or why (I know by now that the where and why is a place in the brain where language does not reach, or apply), I simply took my cup of tea out onto my deck and stood in the mild March sunshine and cold, strong wind for as long as I could stand it — less than five minutes, probably, but enough to absorb the bracing and necessary perspective the Universe hands me sometimes, when I’m lucky.

I considered the thoughts in my head on a Saturday morning: unbelievably trivial things about vitamins and Girl Scout cookies and qigong and work, and compared them to the thoughts in my husband’s. I tried not to judge myself too harshly for being such a self-absorbed creature and instead closed my eyes and said thank you for all the things I can’t begin to articulate, and the humility on offer, and the limitless grace that surrounds my fumbling acceptance of it, and the fact that I have to make a choice to accept it over and over and over again.

I have no answers for how to find peace — if I did, I would have given them to my husband long ago, would not have even kept any for myself if that was the only way I could give them. But I do know that I receive messages all the time — little and sometimes not-so-little, often subtle but occasionally quite loud, ones I can perceive far off and others that appear without any warning — that remind me I have an almost indescribable amount of peace already, accessible to me at almost any time.

It’s there if I do not resist — if I receive it. It’s there if I don’t deny or refute it.

It’s there if I listen, and keep listening, and listen again.

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I originally published this post on January 18, 2022. I’ve edited and updated it here as needed.

📫 Questions from you

Today’s question is from Rebecca, and it’s a great one:

Do you discuss things with your kids about the books? Plotline? Climax? Characters? Like/dislike? I usually end up asking how they think the characters are feeling and forget the other questions… I guess we are at that stage?!

💌 Dear Reader,

First of all, let me say that I’m not sure the stage where you ask what the characters are feeling has a definitive end. I certainly still ask that question all the time, maybe because yes, it’s easy to forget the others, but also because I think social-emotional learning is an ongoing process.

In the case of discussing the books we read, I have always taken a very Montessori, “follow the child” approach — meaning that I have spent time and intentional effort in observing how they interact with books (and me, and each other) while reading, I have used those observations to inform our discussion practice, I meet them where they are and support them when I think it could benefit them.

In practice, this looks like asking questions as we read, yes, but I have also found that neither of my particular children especially like this. When I first began to go beyond, “What do you think so-and-so is feeling?” as our single, go-to question to queries like, “What do you think is going to happen next?” (before turning the page), they refused to engage, shouting, “Mom! Turn the page!”

Maybe I picked the wrong moment, maybe the suspense was too much, but I have found that asking questions while reading has been neither fruitful nor pleasant for us as we read together and has, more than anything, taken away from being present in the moment of the book. (I imagine how I feel when I’m interrupted while reading and I understand it entirely.)

Instead, I take two different approaches, and I think of them sort of like bookends:

The first is at the end of the reading (and there is a reason I am starting with the end): it’s the technique of asking five open-ended questions, which I learned from Sarah Mackenzie in her excellent book, The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids (which I reviewed in issue No. 33). She has since offered a greatly-abbreviated but still super helpful PDF on her website that highlights the conversational process and shares the questions themselves:

• Should he/she have done that?

• How is X like/different from Y?

• Who was _____ in this story?

• What other story does this one remind you of?

• What is something you don’t want to forget?

Again, full credit here to Sarah Mackenzie, who also has a couple of beneficial podcast episodes about this topic, #166: What’s the Deal With Open-Ended Questions? and #02: Engaging Conversations - How To Talk to Your Kids About Books, A Conversation with Adam Andrews. Everything I know about these topics has come from her, and I strongly suggest using any/all of these resources to learn more.

The second “bookend” is at the beginning of reading, and it’s a technique I stole (are you sensing a theme here?) and then adapted from the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method called narration. I’ve mentioned narration before — the idea is, basically, retelling.

There is a ton of thought and intent behind narration and I am going to sell it short here (if you want to dive in, get your hands on a copy of Know and Tell: The Art of Narration by Karen Glass — it’s helpful, and in some ways I think understanding the theory behind narration makes for a better practice), but essentially I ask my children, “What happened last time in this story? Can you tell it back to me in your own words?” I don’t prompt them, give them clues, or ask leading questions — I merely listen to what they remember, whatever their amazing stretchy brains bring to the top.

(I want to pause here for a second and mention that narration doesn’t have to be limited to verbal retelling. “Narration Ideas” via Simply Charlotte Mason offers an excellent roundup of the many ways in which you might “do” narration. At various times and motivated entirely by my children, we’ve played out a book we’ve read; we’ve painted scenes from a story; we’ve sketched, colored, and cut out characters; we’ve made mini books that retell the original version of the story or our revised one; we’ve built the setting of the story with Legos or MagnaTiles and then taken off in whatever direction we please. My point is, don’t get hung up on narration — discussing, question-asking, what have you — as only one thing, a verbal thing. There are as many ways to connect over and process shared reading as there are ways to experience a story. That’s the fun of it.)

“Corn child” — a narration drawn by my then-6yo from a tale in the book,Tell Me a Story: Stories from the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, ed. by Louise DeForest, which I reviewed in issue No. 10

Most people do narration in this sense immediately after reading — i.e., when closing the book, you might say, “What just happened? Can you tell it back to me in your own words?” but in trying it both ways, I find my specific kids are more amenable to doing it before diving into material we’re revisiting, or moving further into. This is decidedly not “true” narration in the Charlotte Mason sense, but flexing things (including educational theory) to meet your needs is the beauty of getting to do whatever the heck you want in your own home with your own family, no?

This is a good segue into my saying — and please hear me on this — however you are discussing things with your kids about books (including if you are not discussing things with your kids about books) is just fine. Talking about what you’re reading, regardless of whether it’s before, during, or after, is great, but it’s not going to make or break the benefits of reading aloud. It’s extra. It’s like brushing your hair — recommended for sure, but not anywhere near as important as brushing your teeth.

I am sure some people disagree with me on this, and you know what? I may even be wrong. But I am not wrong that the most critical part of reading to your children remains reading to your children, full stop.

Find a way that works for you, and keep going. You’re doing a great job.

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Read good books and take good care 😘
Sarah

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