Right Questions to Spark Conversations
“What happened today?”
How was your day?
What did you do at school today?
Child responds Nothing!!!
We parents know all too well, the answer from your child is usually, “Nothing.”
Like every other father and mother, we know that a whole lot of learning happens at school. But no matter how many times we have asked the question, we get the response- Nothing!!
It can be a little frustrating, after all, we just want to know what are they learning, with whom are they forming friendships and how are they feeling at school. Ironically, a child who is normally very talkative, seems out of character when approached with our questions regarding a day at school.
If you notice, your child may occasionally, casually drop some fact they learnt, into a later conversation, like “Bats Can’t-see.” At other times they may slip micro anecdotes, such as “I was playing in the sand pit and my friend took my pail……. That made me really sad.” Here most of us feel excited and start pestering them to find out further details, and also trying to sooth their hurt feelings and give them advice for how to react if it ever happened again. Yet we are unable to crack the - Nothing!! Code.
Do we know the paradox of choice, the psychological theory that people tend to get overwhelmed and freeze up when they have too many options when making a decision. The question “What happened today?” is so wide and generic in nature that children don’t have anything in particular to focus on, so they feel lost or powerless to answer.
If we need to our children to respond with more than - Nothing! We need to create soft boundaries, so that they can search for very specific memories rather than struggle with their entire memory bank.
Let us devise a set of few questions that we can ask our child after school which will lead to meaningful and relatable conversations between you and your preschooler.
- Who did you play with today?
- Which song did you sing at school today?
- “What did you eat for brunch/ lunch today?,”
- What was the book about that your teacher read?
- “What was the best thing that happened?”.
- Did you help anyone today?/ did you clean up after playing in class today?
- Tell me about a new word you learned today.
- Who did you sit with at lunch?
We need to be specific about what we ask our child, it is easier for them when we are focused around a particular learning or social skill area in our questions.
As encouragement for developing communication skills in our preschooler you can have your child ask you a question about your day, and you can share an anecdote from your piece. Hopefully, this will help ensure we can always communicate with our child, especially as they gets older and begin processing more complex issues and situations.
It may take a while in the beginning but soon your child will love sharing their highlights of a school day with you.
