Ask your kid about the last fight they had, you’ll get a whole scene recreated in the house. Ask your kid whether they had their meal done at school or not, and you’ll get a very cold reply. But asking about the day at school means a conversational dead end. From kindergarten to high school, this question is more likely to be responded in monosyllables like “fine”, “good”, and “okay”.
The trick to getting kids open about their day at school is to ask creative, open-ended questions involving some fun activities. Use these tips to trick them while asking about their day. Instead of making it an after-school interrogation, make it a fun discussion.
5 Tips to Trick Your Kids into Asking About Their Day
- Observe their mood
Check your child’s mood after coming back home. Is he happy, sad, angry, or frustrated? What are the emotions he has after coming back? Before jumping into any questions, observe deeply your child’s emotions and let them speak.
- Find the Best Timings
You might be excited to know about your kid’s day at school when he has just started going. But asking how they are doing and getting a robust answer often comes down to timing. When you pick them up, you might be eager to know about their day but all they would want is to decompress. So, finding the best time to know about them becomes important to let them share everything that has happened throughout the day. It might be bedtime or the time you are commuting. Because in both the cases, a child doesn’t have to make eye contact and it makes them speak comfortably.
- Involve Playful Activities
Playing and asking questions is one of the best ways to let your kid answer them freely. “Whenever I want to know about my kid’s day at school, we go for a walk or ice cream together and then he opens up telling each and every detail about how his day went”.
Research shows that involving fun activities makes them feel more creative and reduces mental fatigue. They feel more creative and you’ll be amazed at how enthusiastically they share about their day.
- Do Open Communication
Communication is a two-way thing. You can’t expect the other to speak up before you talk about your own. Tell your kids about how your day went, the happy moments throughout the day, or the successes, and challenges you faced. Involve them in the conversation by asking open-ended questions such as “What was the best part of your day? Did you feel any challenge? How did the teacher react to the activity, so on and so forth.”. Listen to them carefully when they share similar instances of their day. This will make them feel heard and valued and eventually help them become more open to many more conversations.
- Memorize their Schedule
Kids who are still developing conversational skills might be shy about talking about their day. If you know what they are up to in each class or the projects they are working on in school, it can help you strike up a conversation and ask them about the activities going on in each class.
As the parenting hacks go, the only purpose of asking about their day is to lead to curiosity and knowing what your kid is facing. By listening deeply and encouraging healthy conversations they’ll feel more encouraged to share about their day. So the next time your kid freezes at “How was your day?” take a mic and start with yourself first.