Ice breaking with your child

So now that you have decided to take the plunge, lets jet start our discovery and exploration. A lot of parents, particularly mothers spend significantly long hours with their children on a daily basis. Does this necessarily guarantee their understanding of their children? Well we could miss out on the basics as we leap forward into explaining the intricacies of phonetics and number system to our children. We tend to miss out on collecting and retaining the primary facts about people with whom we develop deeper and closer relationships. I might not remember details like my father's favourite movie, actors or sitcom. On the other hand, I had collected a lot of such basic data during an ice breaking session from a course mate who I met just yesterday at summer school. Interestingly we have never had such 'getting to know each other' sessions between parents and children unlike most other relationships like friends, spouse, co-workers etc. Let’s create the introduction phase with your children and see how many of these facts, you already know about them. Try to collect information on the following dimensions from your child

1. What is your favourite:-
Colour
Number
Animal
Subject
Teacher
Actor
Movie
Sport
Cartoon character
Friend
Television show
Song
Toy
Food
Playground/market area/other places of interest

2. Who would you share your secrets with?
3. If you could become somebody or something else, who would it be and why?
4. Which household chore do you enjoy helping out with the most and the least?
5. What makes you happiest/saddest?
6. Where would you go to if you were given a chance to visit any place?
7. If fairy god mother came to you, what three wishes would you ask for?
8. If you could change something about you, what would you change?

This list is not exhaustive. This is merely a structure to guide your exploratory travel through your child's mind. You could add new questions and hypothetical situations depending on your child's age and clarity of such concepts. If your child is old enough, he/ she could do a similar questioning and reporting of your likes and dislikes too so that the flow of information is mutual and both parties get to know each other much better.