How to talk to kids

     So for Nicole's C&I class we listened to a This American Life episode on how to talk to kids and how not to talk to kids. It brings to mind how I was spoken to.  There is one part of the TAL, that is an essay a mother wrote about talking to her high school daughter about sex. The daughter approaches her mom about getting the pill and informs her she will be having sex with her boyfriend.
     This story sounds really uncomfortable to me. My mom and I never had that kind of conversation in high school, maybe because I didn't have a boyfriend till I was 20. My mom, I think trusted me but very much never spoke to me like I was her "friend". There are things they do not want to know. My parents definitely were my parents, they never spoke to me like I was a buddy. But they did treat me like a peer when we were discussing current events, academic topics, and ethical issues. My father and my mother have always spoken to me as if I was just as smart as they were. I remember when I was in 1st grade I was telling my dad the story of creation I had learned in Hebrew School. His response was,"Really Mollie? You believe that?" That comment let me know I didn't have to believe what adults told me.  He let me have doubt about what adults tell me.
   My parents also let us be a kids. They didn't intend to shelter us completely but they kept a lot of outside influences at bay. This allowed my sister and I to really be our age and not to worry about boys, clothes, and what the other girls were doing. I think they spoke respectfully to me and my sister as intellectual equals to them, but they also spoke to us as we were their children.
  They were also fallible, when one of them spoke to us in an inappropriate manner, they allowed my sister and I to call them out.  I remember once my Dad just went off on my moody crazy adolescent sister (she is far more normal now). She deserved a good talking to but not in that manner. I then went up to my dad and told him he was being and asshole and he needed to apologize to her. He responded, "You're right, I will."
    I appreciate the way my parents spoke to us. They never talked to us as if we were dumb but they also sought our advice and valued what we had to say, but they were most definitely our parents.