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| Strategies for extracting the hen's teeth
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As the overwhelming mayhem of the new school or child care year slowly settles into a more organised form of mayhem and the excitement of new friends and new teachers slowly wears off you may find it increasingly difficult to extract any kind of useful information from your children.
The frantic end of day debrief of the first couple of weeks has usually petered out by week 5-6 and if your house is anything like the norm then "How was your day?" is usually met with "fine", "good" or even "I can't remember".
Sending kids off to care or school is a big deal for parents, a lot happens in a day and it's normal to want to hear every last granule of information, and yet, it sometimes seems the more question you ask kids the less information they proffer.
The key is to be sneaky and clever with your asking. Do you like answering when someone says to you: "How was your day?" Chances are most adults would say "fine," "good" or "I forgot" too! A handful of imaginative, specific and open-ended questions are way more likely to elicit an interesting and enthusiastic response from your kid.
You'll have even more luck if you tailor your questions with information you have to hand on set days for the library, sport or any activities going on to mark a special occasion.
Another effective strategy is to be careful and sensitive with your timing, maybe wait until you get home rather than hitting them up for information as soon as you arrive to collect them.
As we all know there is nothing worse than an interrogation at the end of the day, before you've had the chance to decompress and reflect, and for kids this is even more magnified.
Sometimes they need to get home have a drink and collapse in a corner for a few minutes before they have the energy to engage in any form of civilised conversation!
While setting aside time daily for a chat with your clean, well nourished child as they lie in their perfect bed in fresh PJs is an admirable goal, if you can't manage that (who can!!) then aim for a debrief on your way to soccer training or as you put the dishes away together.
Remember it is the connection that is important not necessarily the length of time you spend talking.
Mummy Blogger Liz Evans offers these questions as conversation starters for parents finding it hard to wrangle a morsel of info out of their child:
- What was the best thing that happened today? (What was the worst thing that happened today?)
- Tell me something that made you laugh today.
- If you could choose who would you like to sit next to in group time? (Who would you NOT want to sit next to? Why?)
- Where is the coolest place you went today?
- Tell me a weird word that you heard today. (Or something weird that someone said.)
- If I called your educator tonight what would she tell me about you?
- How did you help somebody today?
- How did somebody help you today?
- Tell me one thing that you learned today.
- When were you the happiest today?
- When were you bored today?
- If an alien spaceship came to your class and beamed up someone who would you want them to take?
- Who would you like to play with that you've never played with before?
- Tell me something good that happened today.
- What word did your educator say most today?
- What do you think you should do/learn more of at school/child care?
- What do you think you should do/learn less of at school/child care?
- Who do you think you could be nicer to?
- Where do you play the most?
- Who is the funniest person in your room? Why is he/she so funny?
- What was your favourite part of lunch?
- If you got to be the educator tomorrow what would you do?
- Is there anyone in your group that needs a time out?
- If you could switch seats with anyone who would you trade with? Why?
- Tell me about three different times you used your pencil/crayon today.
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