Encouraging reciprocal conversation skills in 7 year olds

[ScummyMummy]

Sorry- sounds a bit poncey as a title I know but am finding it quite hard chatting with one of my boys atm. He tends to turn the conversation round to his interest of the moment and list everything he knows about it, which takes forever and I kind of lose concentration as he goes on and on. Then I feel guilty. But if I try and interrupt he loses the thread and finds it hard to say anything. Any ideas?

How could you not want to listen for four hours to everything a child knows about Bionicles scummy Bad Mamma!
Hmmm, joking apart, have you tried honing the active listening/taking turns skills with him by pretending to be interested in Bionicles/Dr bloody Who/Curse of the Wererabbit and taking it from there?
I think there are times with small boys where you have to bow to the inevitable subject-wise in order to engage them in a two-way conversation...it has worked with me, ds and the Slitheen...You cannot coast through it though, they are beady-eyed if they think you are busking your knowledge of Raxacoricofallapatorius...

If it's any comfort I find the lengthy minutiae of the adventures of the Playmobil dolls house family less than riveting...

zzzzzz not to mention dd's "bebbies" and whether they have pooey nappies, tamum

I am ashamed to say we used to play a game when we were all walking to ballet or whatever called "oh how very interesting", said in a sarky tone. I taught them to say it in response to any tedious toddler type remark like "oh, flowers" . It doesn't seem to have worked lately though...

Thank goodness I am not the only one to find the endless prattling of my children somewhat tedious at times. (bad mother)

I agree with Marina that sometimes you have to pretend, though...

I do pretend as best i can, honest.So I'll say, "ah-ha! so blue eyes ultimate dragon is the best card, eh?" and he'll reply "yes. And the next best is green eyes pink pants crocodile and next is dark magician of the furious diamonds and then there's pink eyes ultimate mouse poo and that's worth infinity points and then there's the graveyard card of hobgoblin ultimate purple eyes and on and on and on and ariston." And I feel kind of lost for words....

Years ago a friend sent me a wonderful American book called Mothers Who Think, which included a parenting quiz, ironically entitled: How Many Working Fathers Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb?. One of the questions, which has stuck in my mind ever since was:

"You bathed your five-year old, giving her rapt, undivided tubside attention, while she told you a six-minute story about a rock she'd seen -- or maybe it was a bird, or a book; it's not completely clear."

Says it all, really. We're meant to glaze over. It's how they will (eventually, we hope) learn not to bore other people senseless with eg. a ball-by-ball commentary on the Ashes series (ds, last summer). Luckily his Y1 teacher was Aussie and equally obsessed, but the principle holds good.

So this is normal, then?
lol at your oh how very interesting game tamum!

Very normal, Scummy, I would say. No idea how to encourage them to talk about interesting things sadly, but I think frogs has a good point about them learning what's boring.

In my defence, the children loved the game. Honest.

Oh, I think so! And Frogs has made an extremely valid point - they do need to learn from reading social interactions (eyes rolling up into head/catatonic parents, woman running from room screaming) that going on and on about a pet topic is not appropriate socially.
I have occasionally been tempted to bombard ds with stuff about birch needles and Artesano yarns but I know deep down that this would be cruel and I am the grown-up.

It reminds me of that sequence of scenes in Airplane when the ex-pilot was boring his neighbours and you kept seeing them commit hara-kiri, or get a gun out and so on.

Marina, you can talk to me about Artesano any time you know

We have exactly the same here, ScummyMummy, with DS1, almost 8. His conversation is pretty much exclusively Yugi-Oh! and Dr.Who - I mean,just how interested can I pretend to be in his latest deck? DH is a master on the Dr. Who trivia and I'm afraid I'm left out in the cold.

It is very difficult as DS1 never seems interested in any conversational nugget I offer, even if it's as exciting as the fact that our chrysalides have hatched - like your son, he'll turn the topic to some Blue Eyes Pupating Dragon with special polymerisation features that can attack Life Points directly.

Sigh.

Oh good. My other one doesn't seem to do this at all so I was getting a bit concerned. It honestly isn't the subject matter i find hard so much as the getting a word in edgeways...

So i need to roll my eyes more?

Yup. And sigh deeply, drum your fingers, examine your fingernails....

Ooo! I do have most exemplary sighing and drumming fingers skills. I feel full of confidence all of a sudden.

Mmm, I agree, but I think the 'not getting a word in' and 'obsessing over subject matter' are linked - you're more likely to keep going and bore your audience if you've got obsessive interests.

The other day I picked up both boys from school and DS1 talked practically non-stop for about 10 minutes till we got to the corner of our road. At this point DS2 (nearly 5) was shouting "I want to say something now! It's my turn!".

I have tried to explain to DS1 that not everyone is interested in the same things as him, and that even if they are, few can approach his level of mastery of the chosen subject, but we have not won the war yet...

Totally relate to that, singersgirl. i think we need to get our lads together. Yugioh and dr who are my son's current passions too. My other son becomes exasperated in the same way that you describe your ds2 doing. He resorts to low tactics to say his piece and I end up having to tell him off which his twin then takes as permission to carry on talking...

Actually, thinking about it, the adult male of the species occasionally needs a little direction in this department, too.

Eg, in the frog household

frogdh: "Well, Bath should have beaten Wasps, but you see X couldn't play in that match, and if he had they'd probably have scored more tries. So now that they've only got Y no. of points in the series..."

frog:

frogdh, five minutes later: "...and it was completely unreasonable of the ref to award that try, and... You're not really listening to me, are you?"

LOL frogs. I think part of the problem for me is that I have a pretty low boredom threshold.

ROFL Frogs. I've just read DH some of the posts on this thread

Not that "Mmm, yes, no, mmm, if you say so dear" features heavily in my vocab or anything...

The adult male in this household is rather like FrogDH. And he colludes terribly in the Dr. Who interest. (Quiz at teatime tonight: "How many actors have played The Master?" "In what year did Patrick Troughton first star as the doctor?" Alarmingly, both DH and DS1 seem to know these things.)

But generally I find it very hard to engage DS1 in anything not of his choosing, whereas DS2 is much more biddable (and it's not just because he's younger).

our main "oh how very interesting" ( love that) communication point of the day is at tea time.

we all sit round the table and someone says " so how was your day mummy?" i then do indeed tell them about my day and they listen - becuase ...................................................they want to tell me about theirs! sometimes i can't communicate my day even to a 13 year old - cos its mostly bollocks - but i can say " i had a nasty woman shouting at me today!" cue lots of sympathy. and then when i have finished i chose someone ( none of this is stated as such - it just kinda happens this way) and when they have finished they chose someone.

with regards to pokemon type things - oh god it bores me shitless. and arn't they so very excited - you want to be animated by the subject matter - but just.....can't becuase its crap.

sometimes - as wicked as it sounds - you just have to say - that bores the pants off me - what else can we do/talk about?

i fnd my boys arn't great constant communicators - but get verbal diahorria in spurts

music is a good one - even 7 year old like something to listen to. films.

i have told my youngest son that it doesn't interest me very much.

another one is cards - playing cards is fab for interaction and talking in a nonchalant get them communicating kind of way.

i play a certain driving game or snowboarding game on ps2. theres no talking but were together. which sometimes is just as good if you both want to be there