When Amy started kindergarten a couple of years ago and I asked her about her day, I regularly got answers like ‘Good’, ‘Nice’ or ‘As always’. That was until I realised that I was simply asking the wrong questions. Working as a freelance journalist has taught me that you should always use ‘open-ended-questions’, e.g. questions that make your interviewee talk freely and with emotion instead of ‘closed-ended’questions’ that encourage one-worded answers. And as soon as I used this approach when asking Amy about her day at kindergarten and now at school, the conversation started flowing.
If your child is a little tight-mouthed when you want them to talk about their day at school or nursery, the following 20 questions might help you to start a conversation about their school day.
Get your child to talk about their day
1. What’s the best/worst/ thing that has happened at school today?
2. What made you laugh today?
3. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned/done today?
4. How would you rate your day from 1 to 10?
5. Who did you play with today?
6. Which child that you aren’t friends with yet would you like to become friends with? Why?
7. What’s a nice thing you did for someone else today?
8. Who is the funniest child in your class?
9. What’s the most difficult thing you’ve learned to today?
10. What’s the funniest thing Ms/Mr …. did in class today?
11. What have you learned about one of your classmates today?
12. What made you happy/sad/angry today?
13. What are you most proud of today?
14. What would you like to learn more of at school?
15. What did you have for lunch today?
16. If you could be the teacher for the day, what would you do?
17. What’s your favourite thing to do at break time?
18. What do you like best about your classroom?
19. Which book would you like to read with your school friends and why do you think they’d enjoy it?
20. If teacher/student XYZ was a character from a fairy tale or Disney movie, who would they be?
Get your child to talk about their day - more tips
Something else that’s really helpful before starting a conversation about your child’s school day is giving them half an hour to decompress when they come home. Amy is much more likely to talk about her school day once she’s had a drink and snack, which I think is something I can totally relate to. We all need a little breather after a busy day at work.
Also, give your child your undivided attention when talking about school. Don’t ask them about their school day because you feel like you have to but because you’re genuinely interested in hearing about their day. Your kids deserve your full attention and just ask yourself, who you would rather talk to - someone who’s showing an active interest in what you’re saying or someone who’s distracted and giving you ‘aha’ and ‘okays’ as an answer?
There are also a couple of great ways to ‘stretch out’ your conversation. Little remarks like ‘Oh that’s interesting/funny, tell me more about it’ or ‘Wow, really?’ can help you carry on a conversation that’s showing signs of slowing down and repeating bits of your child’s answers can do the same thing and motivate them to add other tidbits of information. Give it a try!
How to get your child to talk about their day? Do you have a set of questions or are you happy to hear their day was ‘okay’? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
some really great tips here Carolin. I always ask my two on the way home from school how their day was, and sometimes I get lots of replies but then other times one will tell me lots, and the other does not get a chance. but I am interested, which is why its frustrating when they open up at bedtime!!! x
I know what you mean. Amy always has ‘really important’ stuff to share at bedtime. Funny, isn’t it? 😀 x
Lots of great ideas here. My boys are so difficult to get information from now they’re a bit older.
Jo Romero says
This is great - whenever I pick up my nine year old from school and ask about what she did all day, she always says ‘nothing much’ - which ends the conversation, pretty much. It’s good to see the questions I could ask to get the conversation going. Great post, thank you.
Thank you, I hope it gets your little lady talking 😉
Leyla Preston says
Great post! We have a listening couch, where the kids must come and sit down and have a chat with me for about 15 minutes before they go about and do their thing after school, like grab snacks and change out of their clothes. I ask these kinds of questions too and it’s amazing how much a little prompting can get them to talk about their day and also talk about any issues they may have faced that us parents wouldn’t have known about had we not dug a little deeper than usual to find out. Thanks for sharing x
Absolutely, I think making that special time is so important. For them knowing that someone is genuinely interested in their day really makes all the difference when it comes to sharing or not sharing x
and when they’re teenagers you ask ‘so, who caused a drama at school today’
Haha and there’s always plenty of it. Mind you, even Amy always has something to tell me about someone not following the rules. She’s such a stickler for them - other than her mummy, haha 😀
Emma - Life According to MrsShilts says
These are great tips. We’re into our second week of reception and already know how Olly’s day has gone ‘he can’t remember’ and ‘he’s forgot’. I’ll be using some of these tips instead this week.
Oh how exciting. How’s he enjoying it so far? Amy is in week three, but they start at 6 here in Germany, and so far, she’s loving it. Let me know how you get on x
Great post! I could have done with this one a few years ago…mine are now 7 and 8 and took me a looooong time to work this out for myself. One thing that I eventually worked out was that straight after school is NOT the time for my two…especially my daughter…so now I bite my tongue and wait until dinner time. Then we play a game called ‘3 things’ - basically we all say what has been the best thing and worst thing about our day and what thing we are most looking forward to…we also rate our days from 1 to 10. On good days this is a great conversation starter…on bad days, not so much!! Eb x
I totally agree with you. Kids need a breather when they come out of school. Being inundated with questions causes them to shut down completely, so I’d rather wait a bit than not hear anything at all. We rate our days too, but we use ‘thumbs up, ‘thumbs down’ and ‘so so’ movements 🙂
Wave to Mummy says
I love this idea! I’ve been trying something similar with my daughter but she is still a bit young to get the hang of it (at reception now). I’ll definitely keep on trying though!