Drama Llamas and Angry Beavers

The above title is courtesy of my daughter.

Last night D&D became a bit of a drama/emotional session as feelings and emotions surfaced. One of those emotions was the feeling that my daughter was under the impression that I told her she was too opinionated. I have no idea how she got that impression from what I actually said.

I am glad she has opinions, ideas, and beliefs. I encourage this and what her to explore them. We should all be exploring and challenging our own ideas every chance we get. Remember - challenging does not necessarily mean changing. But if someone asks you why you believe what you do "Just because" isn't a great answer.

It thrills me to no end that Tryn is so enthusiastic about life. I love her passion and her excitement and wouldn't change it for the world.

I am a parent however and as a parent my job is to teach my child (yes I know she is 17, I'm still her parent) and to help her be a better person and adult. There are 3 topics that one must be careful when debating usually - politics, religions and honestly I can't remember the third one. But when debating these it is so important to make sure that the other people know that you respect their view points. A few times when I have heard Tryn discuss religion - I love the fact that she is passionate about her religion but the respect for other religions doesn't always translate. I asked to to be aware of that fact.

Conversational skills is a developed art. Some people are born verbal story tellers - I am not one of them. The second thing I mentioned to her was that a good skill to have is to know when to invite other people to tell their part of the story. I have seen this in practice many times, when a speaker comes to part of the story he/she is telling that involves someone else who is in the room they will often turn to that person and invite them to tell that part of the story. It is a polite thing, a respectful thing and keeps everyone in the conversation.

Somehow all this exploded tonight on an entirely different subject to where Tryn thinks that I think she is opinionated and she thinks she won't be a good teacher. I think she will be a great teacher. She has the passion and the desire - the two items I mentioned to her are things that if she chooses to implement will make her life easier, but are not necessarily life changing events, they are more social skills. The things a parent tries to pass on to help their children and make their life easier.

Update:

After everyone calmed down, Tryn seems to have regained her self confidence. :)