Talking to our children is a challenge.
It is hard to believe we are a couple months into the school year and are embarking on the holiday season. Many children have settled into their new classroom routines and are busy with after-school sports, playdates, sleepovers and birthday parties. However, more often than not, when you ask your child how their day was, children will often respond with a simple “good” or a “uh huh” or nothing at all.
As a parent, this can be a frustrating response, leading your to feel at a loss for connection.
Connecting with your children may have less to do what what you’re saying but rather how you’re asking. Here are five things to keep in mind when you are asking your child how their day was.
1. Break down your question, make it specific and time oriented to talk to your child more effectively
Unlike adults, children are still developing their working memory (short term memory) and their sense of time is a lot different than ours. That is why it is especially for young children to help scaffold questions to help children recall their day better. Rather than asking your child “How was your day?” which is too general and can put pressure on your child to come up with something, you can you ask something like “How was morning meeting?” or “What game did you and Jack play at recess?”
Adding something specific in the way you ask will spark your child’s recall and will provide you with knowledge that you can build on later.
2. What happened today that was silly, fun, exciting?
Children, like adults, can sometimes forget the silly, fun, or exciting things that happen throughout the day so framing your question in this way can jog their memory. Children may not think to share these small details when asked how their day is and yet this can be a way to start a conversation with your child and lead to deeper topics. It can be a way for them to process something that might have confused or worried them.
3. What was something today that made you feel frustrated?
Using feeling words with kids is a good way to start helping them connect their experiences throughout the day to how they felt about them. It can help them communicate more effectively in the future if they begin learning how to decipher their feelings from different situations and thoughts.
For example, we were Skyping with my four-year-old niece in Pittsburgh and my mom asked “How was your day at school?” my niece said: “Good.” Then I asked what made her feel frustrated. She looked up from what she was doing and said: “On the playground I couldn’t use the bicycle and I cried cried cried!”
4. Who is someone in class you like to play with?
Another important tool in communicating effectively with your child is being able to be aware of social issues that may be surfacing.
Asking about who your child liked playing with is a way for you to learn more about the social intricacies that are happening during the school day.
This can help you to ask more specific questions once you know more about the other kids in your child’s class. Social relationships are key to development and asking these types of questions can help you to talk to your child about issues that may come up for him socially.
5. Observe!
Ultimately, your child will bring up things through their play so by observing how your child plays, you can more effectively talk to your child.
The other day my niece was pretending to be a teacher reading a story to my nephew. In the middle of her play she started yelling: “Listen to me! Face me! Why don’t you listen to the story? Pay attention in circle time! I’ll stop the book!” We were shocked. We asked where she heard that and she said “My teacher said that.” She then said how a boy in her class had been hanging around the cubbies during circle time and the teacher got frustrated.
This also shows that you do not always have to force children to tell you what happened, they will bring it to you in less obvious ways.