First tip is: Don’t ask your kids that. It’s too broad, they’re too tired from a long day at school to give you the picture perfect answer you’re looking for. Most of the time you’re going to get “Fine” or “It was okay.” Occasionally you’ll get “Horrible!” (Hopefully not too often.)
My son, for example, acts like he hates school and he would prefer it if he could just play all day. School, to him, is the most boring part of his day and he’d rather not talk about it. So I have to get creative with how I approach him about school. (His sister, on the other hand, just bubbles over with information.)
If you’re not getting a good answer to the “How was your day at school,” here’s what you can do/ask instead:
- Wait until they pull out their homework/papers sent home.
Instead of peppering them with questions as soon as you see them, give them a minute to adjust being home. Once you get a sense of what they’re working on for homework that day, you can ask specific questions about their assignments. “It looks like you all are studying weather this week. Have you learned about the water cycle yet? Oh, yeah? Tell me about it.”
- Focus less on today and ask questions about tomorrow.
I’ve found that my kids are eager to talk about school, but recapping your day (every day) can be boring. But if you pay attention to their school calendar and you know they have art class on Thursdays, on Wednesdays you can ask them what they might create in class the next day.
- Talk about specific people.
I mostly want to know two things: how do my children get along with their teacher and are the other students nice to them? Even if you don’t know the names of everyone in their class, make it a point to know at least 3-4 and ask about them regularly. Bonus points if you talk to the parents of the other kids, which will give you an even better perspective of how things are really going in the classroom.
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These are all great points! My daughter never responds to the “how was school?” Question. But if I already have a rough idea of what she was doing I like to ask questions off of that like if she had to do a presentation or an event took place like the Terry Fox run.
And she loves to talk! Once she gets going she will talk and talk. Her favourite subject is recess drama. Oh to be 7-years-old.
I love these! My daughter always give me the “fine” or “good” response. But my hubby asks her and he gets the FULL RUN DOWN. I am just glad she is talking to one of us, but I be like dang….I guess Ill just ear hustle to find out what happened today.
Excellent points Tara. I’m guilty of asking this question several times a week and usually receive the same responses from my middle school age child– “it was just okay” or “good.” You bring up a great point that the question is too open ended and I’ve often times found myself asking more and more questions on the ride home just to get a glimpse of what happened during his school day. I’ll be pinning this to my Successful Parenting board for future reference. Thanks!
I do this all the time and get the requisite “fine,’ more often than not. My 1st and 3rd grade teachers send home a newsletter every week and they include some questions that I can ask the kids that are specific to what they are studying that week. That has been SO helpful, I can now ask questions like “tell me about your living history museum project, what’s exciting about the person you’ve chosen to write about”; “I heard that you learned how to grow kale in your gardening class, I don’t know how to grow kale can you tell me about how it happens;” “I heard you have a new PE teacher, what fun exercises for kids has she shown you?” Those open-ended, specific questions usually get the conversation going. Thanks for the post Tara!