teach them to talk

I'm a big talker. Always have been. Many of my kindergarten reports said kind things like 'bit of a chatterbox!', or, 'always has an opinion!'.
Nice ways of saying 'oh my god could she just stop talking for 5 freaking seconds already??!!'

(If I only I could find all those dear ladies now and let them know karma has totally sorted me out on this one  ... times two actually ....)

I digress.

I've always been a big talker - I credit myself with being a pretty good listener too - and while these things are to a measure personality based, I think how to listen, and how to talk, are on the (endless) list of skills we need to learn, too.
Preferably starting at home.

I learnt about debate at my mother's knee, literally. My parents enjoyed lively discussion, had no qualms disagreeing on things, managed their disagreements with wit and humour, and knew when to agree to disagree (one of the most necessary conversational skills one should master I reckon).

I spent many evenings listening in on the lively political and social discussions which took place around our dinner table, and the braai-fires and living rooms of our family friends.
My parents lived in an age of disinformation - what news they were able to access was often heavily censored, there was no internet, and the ability to listen - really listen, to read between the lines, to intelligently ask the kind of questions which would give you the information you needed and crucially, to talk it all out, was all the material they had with which to form their opinions and views on their world and its future.
I didn't always understand what they were talking about, but from early on I picked up the ways in which one conversed, the rhythms and patterns of debate and discussion. How to disagree, how to stick by your guns, how to see something from someone else's point of view and if necessary tailor your argument to make sense in their terms. How to back down, to concede, how to walk away with your dignity intact.
I learnt that one doesn't always need to speak louder to be heard. That it's the strength of your argument, not your language which'll win your audience over.
I learnt how good language can cow the greatest conversational bully, how and when to let your emotions show, or not.
I learnt exactly how much wine one should consume to be razor sharp and entertaining, and how just one glass too many can turn you into a droning incoherent bore.

These are some of the most valuable lessons of my childhood, I never underestimate for a second how incredibly lucky I am to have learnt them at home. And today, as we all feel very raw about the violence at Lonmin mine yesterday, these are the things I'm pondering again, and recommitting myself to teaching my two chatterboxes how to talk.

To really, really talk. To listen. To glean the facts from the excessive amount of news, opinion and information which abounds today (the exact opposite from my childhood but arguably no more clearer), to know how to identify the truths and the lies, to decide for themselves what those are.
To debate - with themselves, their contemporaries, their world.

I can't arm my daughters against natural disasters, car crashes or freak accidents, but I hope to be able to arm them against lack of communication. Something which I regard to be as dangerous, and almost more destructive, than anything else.