Long-Distance Discussions

Do you feel this way too?

  • If you want to be present despite the long distance
  • If you want to feel relevant in their day-to-day lives
  • If you want to know them and them to know you

Start a book discussion!!!

Long-distance relationships are hard. In the past, heartfelt monthly letters to loved ones allowed people to connect deeply through handwritten descriptions of their emotions and experiences.

Now, FaceTime and Zoom make communication easy and immediate. As a result, we can talk several times a day with relatives and friends who live thousands of miles away. However, some complain that conversations seem to revolve around shallow, uninteresting topics that don’t allow us to connect with others’ feelings.

START A BOOK DISCUSSION

Do you feel this way too?

If you want to be present despite the long distance

If you want to feel relevant in their day-to-day lives

If you want to know them and them to know you

Meaningful and productive interactions with others support mental health, a sense of belonging, and overall success, while also fostering empathy, communication skills, collaboration, and resilience.

Discussing a book with young readers helps develop self-awareness by exploring and naming emotions, self-management through setting goals and overcoming challenges, social awareness by considering others’ feelings and respecting diversity, healthy relationships through friendship, gratitude, and apologies, and responsible decision-making by examining choices, problem-solving, and understanding consequences.

A CRAZY IDEA TO SPICE THINGS UP

Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, is convinced that reading aloud to children helps them develop vocabulary skills, improves their reading level, and advances a host of other academic indicators. This has been proved by several academic studies since the 1980s. Trelease advises parents to keep reading to children even after they begin reading to themselves. Why not take turns reading? They read to you and you read to them! Also, Trelease argues that children’s listening comprehension outpaces their reading ability, so children may understand a more challenging text when it is read to them.