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How to Get Your Kid to Talk About His/Her Day
How do you get your kid to talk about his/her day with you at the dinner table? Our 5-year-old son used to talk about what he did at school and now he's a total clam about summer camp. I only know that he swims, plays in the sand and is enjoying getting every part of him dirty -- oh, and he eats his lunch. What strategies have you used with your kids to make them talk?
Comments
When I pick my son up from school, I try to ask the teacher what the students did that day. Or, I look at the daily schedule. Then at dinner, I can ask more informed questions than just a "what did you do today?" One way I can sometimes get a response is to make up something like "So, did you ride horses today at school?" when I know they didn't. My son will usually say "No, we xxxx today." I can't get an answer every day but I keep trying.
Natalie,
That's a great suggestion about asking what you didn't do that day! Thanks!
A
Alice Osborn, MA
www.aliceosborn.com
I used to ask her what she had for lunch, if she took a nap but about a month ago, instead of answering, she said "just go look at my sheet." Now I ask my daughter what the other kids in her class did that day. We go through all 10 or 12 of them and by the end of it I have a pretty good idea (or at least her version of it. she's only 3). And she does sometimes make up fantastical stories which is always fun to hear.
I ask my son what he thinks his little sister would think of ... whatever I am trying to get information about--- As if I need his help in finding out whether I should send my daughter to the same activity. For ex: Would your sister like the movie? What would she like about it? What wouldn't she like about it? He would thoughtfully answer these questions, but ignore me if I just wanted to know what he thought of the movie. I got fewer "it was good" s -- the ubiquitous noninformative anwser to any question. I got lots of thoughtful analyses of summer camps, music lessons, classes, schools, etc. with this approach.