Sounds like a good time for a valuable life lesson about gauging counterparty interest in the topic at hand. Which so many people in the CS program at uni could have used.
shudders, remembering a 20 minute "conversation" about DnD crossbow rules I somehow ended up in
Eh, sounds like these are young kids. It's more important to let them be excited about something and share that with you. Besides, what shared interests do you really have as a parent? It's not like your kids are going to discuss politics or their critique of Avengers: Endgame.
I agree with you, ethbro, it is a valuable life lesson. I can personally attribute most of my social successes to the ability to gauge the interlocutor and their interests, and such a skill will gain one a rep as a good listener.
Not in reference to the aforementioned children, because that's normal behavior for kids, but I think of active listening as not being a conversational sociopath.
I'm convinced some people instead have a mantra of "When do I get to talk again?" looping in their head whenever someone else is speaking.
On the other hand, I feel like some people have internalized this idea a bit too well, and apply it in places it doesn’t belong, becoming offended (for social-norm-violation reasons) when someone gives a tangential reply in a threaded comment system like HN’s or Reddit’s, because the tangent is “derailing the conversation” or “not addressing the topic.”
Except, of course, that’s impossible; a tangential reply likely won’t even be the first reply people see in the sub-thread, after they get re-sorted by vote, so the only people who will engage with it are the people who never cared about the original topic in the first place.
shudders, remembering a 20 minute "conversation" about DnD crossbow rules I somehow ended up in