When I have “down-to-earth/serious” conversations with my 10 year old son, do you know what he does? He yawns. As in, deliberately, big-humongous yawn like it’s 2:30 in the morning. But it’s only noon. And he's done this consistently (I've noticed it in the past year).

 

Now at first, I was kind of insulted because I THINK I’m having a really engaging conversation with my kid, but I’m causing him to yawn. I thought to myself – “why is he yawning when I’m talking serious to him. He wasn’t yawning 2 minutes ago when you were playing the video game!!!!” However, I didn’t mention anything to him, I just talked through it.

 

But the more I would have these talks with him, the more I would notice. He yawns. Every time. HUGE. At 11am, at noon, at 1pm, at 2 pm, at 3pm – at the PRIME of the day. Only the serious talks about life and our family, he never yawns when we talk about video games – which I understand that part, because at that age I would much rather talk about video games than talk about how to treat my siblings and why our attitudes are important.

 

But come on, bro! If his YAWN was a SNEEZE, it would be like all over my face because he didn’t cover his mouth. He didn’t even attempt to!

 

So I decided to do some research on (what came to be known as) excessive yawning. Now of course, my son ONLY yawned when I spoke serious, so it’s not like he was yawning all day. And I know for certain that he gets sufficient and more than sufficient rest. So I don’t have serious concern about it. However, when I start speaking serious to him, he does resemble many of the excessive yawning attributes. LOL!

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Importantly, however, the things that we talk about during those times, he does still retain it, so I guess that his yawning is more of a distraction to me, than it is to him. 

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I’ve just learned that when I talk in a deeper voice, he keeps better attention, rather than when I have the tone of Michael Jackson. So I talk in the tone of James Earl Jones (Mufasa!).

 

And that seems to work.

 

I think the last time that it happened was about 2 weeks ago, so the next time I remember, I will try to talk serious to him and see if he still yawns and I’ll update you. Maybe I'll put him down for a nap. And tuck him in.

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Now on the other side of children... when I talk "serious" to my daughters, they do NOT yawn. Which makes me feel a whole lot better. But what they DO do is say "uh-huh" constantly. Like... way too much constantly. Which to me, makes me feel like they just want me to shut up already. 

 

I'll be honest...I can understand that.  

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Take care!