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 Crafts & Conversations: 4 Questions you Should Be Asking Your Middle Schooler

Crafting with children is all about conversation.  You relax and begin to really talk.  We’re back in school but I don’t want to give up sharing crafting projects with my daughter. That’s why I always have a few easy crafts, like these painted rocks, on my pinboard.

Crafting with her is important because she’s more likely to open up when we’re relaxed and doing something fun together, than when I ask how she’s doing.  My daughter is strong and beautiful, and unique.  She also has Alopecia Totalis, and has lost all her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.  It’s very hard being the only girl in Middle School who wears a wig, and I want her to feel like she can talk to me about it.  But, I also want her to be able to not talk about it too.

While you’re crafting with your middle schooler, don’t forget to ask these four questions. These conversation starters can help you gain insight into what she’s really thinking.

• Start with Friends: If you ask her how her day went, and you get “fine”, then it’s time to ask about her friends.  Ask her to tell you something her friend(s) said today that she found funny or interesting.  Since she’s always interacting with them, I learn something about how her day unfolded by listening to her talk about them.
• Ask about her Teachers: My experience has taught me that kids who don’t want to go to school in the morning are usually having problems with teachers, rather than other students.  I learn so much about how she perceives her school experience by asking about her teachers.  I believe that teachers care about their students, but have occasionally confronted a teacher because of behavior which is consistently perceived as hostile or unhelpful by my daughter.  You must ask about her teachers because we condition our children to obey their teachers, and in turn, our kids often won’t talk about the problems they’re having with teachers at school.
• Ask her to show you something funny from her social media. I do this for two reasons.  One, it quietly reminds her that I’m aware she’s using social media and that I will be looking at it.  This is a non-threatening way of enforcing the fact that you do monitor her social media accounts.  I’ve also found out about new social media accounts this way.  Two, by being interested in her social media, you are encouraging kind behavior because she honestly cares about how you see her and she will want to post in a way that makes you proud of her.  But this only works if she knows that you’re looking at it.

Once she showed me a bunch of pet rescue videos and talked about all her ideas on how we could create safer pet adoptions and how we need to find ways to make it easier for families to clean pet hair from our homes so that they’re more open to being pet owners.  I was so amazed at her thoughtfulness and maturity, and I wouldn’t have known about it if I hadn’t asked to see an interesting video she liked.

• Talk about the craft. I don’t really need another paper snowflake or painted rock, but crafting helps me teach her that most talents are developed over time, with trial and error.  This experience I’m giving her highlights the difference between reality and the glimpse of life that we see in social media posts.  It can be so easy for young teens to think that their favorite star’s online life is a documentary rather than a highlight reel.  When we talk about and make art—even the easy kind of art that we call crafting, it gives our kids insight into the creative process.  And as much as schools want our kids to be creative, the pressure from standardized tests gives them little time to cultivate creativity or trial-and-error.  Crafting gives our children permission to fail—and to learn from it.

We all want to be close to our children.  Finding new ways to open up the conversation gives us insight and, once in a while, a proud mama moment.