Ask the Child Psychologist

Category: Communication

How was school today? Go easy on questioning kids

"So, how was your first day or school?" a parent asks. "Fine," the child says. The parent goes on to ask, "What did you do today?". Child responds, "Not much."

A common challenge that parents often face is how to effectively communicate with their children. For the lucky ones, their children are open books. They share what homework they have, what they did in school, which friends they played with and other important information about their day. For the rest, prying out details can make breaking into Fort Knox seem like a cakewalk. With a new school year beginning, parents and children have a new opportunity to work on establishing good two-way communication. Below are some suggestions to help with this process:

• Avoid the temptation to bombard your child with questions right after school. As much as you might like to see your child come out to a podium for a news conference after the first day of school, he or she might be tired or not ready to talk. One approach might be to tell your child how much you want to hear about school. Then, you might acknowledge they seem tired or energetic or however they appear to you. Some children will be very eager to talk about school while others might need some down time or to get out their energy. If they really don't want to talk, see if you can agree to a later time that would work.
• When you ask questions, be ready to listen. This means avoiding making judgments or giving lectures and not answering your cell phone. Also, be careful not to try to solve problems for the child. If a challenge is identified, work with the child on developing a strategy for approaching the problem. For example, brainstorm how the child can seek extra help if he does not understand something.
• If you do ask questions, try to ask specific ones. Try "What did you do in science?" or "Who did you play with at recess?" vs. more general questions such as "How was school today?". If the child continues to avoid questions or give vague answers, you might acknowledge it's a difficult question or it isn't the best time to talk about the topic. Ask permission to bring the issue up later.
• Use empathy if the child expresses frustration or challenges. For example, if the child is complaining about too much homework or being bored we should validate how they feel. A statement such as, "I'm hearing that school is very hard right now" can be helpful. We don't want to be sarcastic or tell them how bad we had it when we were their age. If the child is coming home with an increasingly negative attitude, try to figure out with him what might be going wrong. Is he making friends? Are certain academic areas very difficult? Typically, there is a good reason.
• Create a "rose and a thorn" for the day. The "rose" refers to something that went well and the "thorn" might be a challenge of problem that came up. I have used this strategy for kids who resist opening and have found it effective to give some structure to the conversation. In some cases, we have even recorded it each day in a journal.
• If the child continues to not tell you much, tell the child about your day. This could have the effect of modeling for them how you share information or even bore them until they learn they are better off telling you about their own stuff.

Remember to be patient with your child (and hope they can be patient with you). Effective communication is a work in progress for many that changes as children are developing and face new challenges.

Good luck to all for an exciting new school year.