Michelle Gale Interview

A few things come to mind right away. My children, for one. I love the school they attend, and they still have genuinely hard days. They come home worn out, and some years have been rough on them, even inside a place that's as supportive as this one. The way I look at it, when they walk through the door, my job is to make the house a place they feel safe arriving into. That holds true even on the evenings when I'm running on empty. I try hard not to come at them with a barrage of questions the second they're back.

Think about what most of us do. The kids get home and there's a stretch of time they need to decompress. It's a real thing, that transition, and they count on having it. I didn't always honor it. For years I was exactly the parent who met them at the door with "How was your day? What happened? Who did you sit with at lunch?" One question stacked on the next. I've only shifted this in maybe the last year or two.

Now, some kids do come home wanting to talk, and when that's what they're offering, we take it in. We listen. We let ourselves go soft and permeable so whatever they're carrying can move through and land somewhere. That's part of building the safe space: being open enough to receive it.

We can also be honest about where we are. I might say something like, "I really want to be here with you and hear about your day, and I'm also noticing how tired I am from work. You might pick up on that. If it seems like I've drifted off and stopped paying attention, nudge me. Remind me to take a breath." Letting them in on our inner weather is allowed. I'm not talking about dumping the day's stress on a child, but naming what's happening inside us is fair. "I'm tired right now. It was a long one for me too. I want to sit down and actually listen to how your day went."

Then I just listen, and I hold off on trying to fix anything right away. And if they don't want to talk at all, that's fine too. I learned a practice from another mother who did this: I keep a small journal, and when one of them says something, or clearly wants nothing to do with talking that evening, I'll jot down the questions or whatever they let slip, and come back to it later.