realtalknic

A few years ago while running a corporate training event we had our participants do quick chats using conversation starter cards as cues. The results were great and it’s a staple for work meetings. As is often the case I practice on my kids prior to work to gage the flow and effectiveness of the activity.My kids and husband were not amused. Ha! "Corny!", they said!  Too bad. This is mom’s job on the line. Play along. So they did. And something magical happened. Amidst the nay saying, some fantastic and insightful conversations occurred. We made it a habit and it has been a winning tool in my parenting war chest. At the same time I began my completely unscientific and nosey study on conversations. A call it my Target Shopping Cart study. Because most of my eavesdropping occurred while pushing a cart buying things I didn’t know I needed at target.  It works like this…..listen to how people talk to their kids in Target. (walmart, Kroger, Costco….store doesn’t matter) ...

You know it's summer in our house when that 1st Saturday comes and the macaroni salad is in the fridge waiting for the boys to come and get it. It's a summer Saturday staple. From Memorial Day to Labor day....you can count on it. As I stood at the island making it this week I found myself thinking back to an incident where my traditional tuna macaroni summer salad told us everything you need to know about how to talk about race. With love and laughter. We were heading out on our family vacation, a 12 hour road trip from NJ to Disney. Cell phones weren't a big deal then but we were fancy with walkie talkies in each car. After about 3 hours we decided to hit the rest stop and have some lunch. My best friend, who is white, had packed a beautiful basket of cold cuts and breads. My kids ran to her basket and made sandwiches. I had a cooler filled with my tuna and macaroni and while we eat healthy most of the time....I had fried up some chicken for the road. Of cours...