20 fun ways to ask about your child's day
I really remember this as a child.
Getting picked up or coming in from school and my dad would ask: “How was your day?” I’d say: “Fine”. Sometimes he’d switch it up a little and ask: “Have you had a good day?” And I’d invariably say: “Yes”.
End of conversation - short and sweet.
Or maybe not so sweet…
We hear this a lot from parents of school age children. Sometimes they’ll ask: “What did you do at school today?” And they get: “Nothing”.
Which makes them want to scream as they know that’s not true! And they really do want to have a genuine conversation with their children about what kind of day they've had.
The thing is that a child’s ‘everyday day’ is filled with a million and one things that have happened and so when you ask them to pick one thing to tell you about, it feels like a whole lot of effort - sometimes too much effort, hence the shutdown.
Also - let’s face it - it’s actually a REALLY boring a question to be asked!
The other thing is that it's not a very specific question either. What exactly are you asking them? What do you really want to know?
My guess is that you want to know what they got up to in class, or at break time.
You want to know if they found their class work easy or difficult.
You want to know how what they were thinking or how they felt.
And you probably really, really want to know if they ate their lunch!
How do you get the answers to those? It's pretty simple - ask the right questions.
What superhero power do you wish you had in school today?
So, if you're a parent who is looking to have a better conversation with your child about their day, try asking some of the following questions instead. They might not result in the longest conversations but you're more likely to get at least get a full sentence or two.
1. Tell me something that made you laugh today.
2. Who did you play with at break time? What did you play?
3. When were you happiest today?
4. Who is the loudest person in your class?
5. Who is the funniest person in your class? What’s the funniest thing they’ve ever done?
6. Who is the kindest person in your class? What’s the kindest thing they’ve ever done?
7. Did you do to anything to help somebody today?
8. Did anybody do anything to help you today?
9. What was the hardest thing you had to do today?
10. What score would you give today on a scale of 1 – 10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best? Why?
11. If you could be the teacher tomorrow, what would you teach the rest of the class?
12. What haven’t you learned yet at school that you would like to learn?
13. Who brought the best food in for their lunch today? What did they bring? Would you like to have that?