To start with, the title is obviously a short summary and not indicative of the language I use!
I have DS1 (7) and DS2 (4). Both reasonably well behaved and reasonably smart. The 4yo is a bit young for what I'm thinking about so this mainly pertains to the elder.
Like many kids, they're in love with various TV shows and characters. I'm quite restrictive about screen time and half the things they play act (Marvel, etc) they've never even seen but have picked stuff up from school mates. Now, I have no issues with them playing at being characters as much as they want: all good healthy fun. But there will be times - when we're walking somewhere, say, or at the dinner table, or when we're meeting friends - when conversation will revolve entirely around detailed descriptions of entire episodes of crap telly I've never seen, or long lists of various superheroes' powers, etc. I want to strike a balance between being a listening ear and joining in with their chatter but, with the older one in particular, is he old enough to hear from me, gently, that those TV shows aren't my cup of tea so I'm not really interested in hearing all abut that; why doesn't he tell me about XX instead?
It feels a bit mean, when I've thought about it, and I know as parents we all master the "Uh-huh... yeah... really?!" thing whilst compiling mental shopping lists. But I do think learning how to be part of a give-and-take conversation and picking up on social cues is a good life skill, and I don't want to do the pretend listening thing forever; it feels dishonest.
Thought I'd post as this is one of the few areas of parenthood I've stumbled across where I'm genuinely not sure what I think! Have others had similar conversations with their kids?