Tips for Talking to Your Child About His/Her Day at Kinderpillar

What did you do in school today? Did you have a good time? Usually the answer from your child is one word or a shoulder shrug.

Every parent wants to know how their child’s day at school went but interestingly probably last thing you should do is ask her directly! Here are few ideas that will help you get a conversation going.

• Don’t Ask: Avoid asking about school first thing. Children get used to the routine of a parent asking about their day and don’t put much thought into the answer. Plus if you don’t ask you allow her the space to offer something about school in a more natural way that doesn’t put her on the spot.

• Give Time: Just as you do, your child needs time to rest after a day at the “work” of school. Give her time to relax and play before you ask her about his/her day. Give enough time to the child to listen, think and process their thoughts so that they can speak something. While giving them time to think, don’t talk to them. Don’t just throw one question after the other in a row to the child.

• Share Your Day: Briefly tell your child about your day. It is helpful to talk about how you feel. Focusing on how you feel instead of just what you did provides your child with a model for reflection and sharing. He might not understand your words sometimes but as a parent what we will convey to him is that he is an important part of our life and we are sharing our feelings to him. This will boost up his confidence and he can be more open to us and gradually will start taking initiatives to communicate and discuss his problems/ feelings with us. Invite your child to share how he feels too!

• Draw it: Many children are better at showing you about their day than talking about it. Provide your child with paper and crayons to draw a picture of his day. Don’t expect a detailed drawing. You will probably see more of a “feeling” of the day depicted. Often a child will feel more comfortable talking about something concrete like his picture than something abstract like his day!

• Avoid Yes or NO questions: When you ask questions that can be easily answered with yes or no (Did you have a good day?) you don’t get a real conversation going. Of course, sometimes you need to get information fast. (Do need to bring show and tell tomorrow?) That would be an appropriate time to ask this type of question.

• Ask Playful Questions: Fun and even silly open-ended questions invite conversation. You might ask, “What happened when the dinosaur came to circle time? No dinosaur? A hippo? No, then what did happen?” Or try asking general questions such as: “What was the best thing you did today”

• Understand your child: If the child finds it difficult to explain something, you should try to understand what he wants to say actually. Also listen carefully to their language mistakes and make corrections immediately. This is important for their vocabulary enhancement.

• Increase the “child talk time”: Take necessary actions to increase child talking time. At the same time, try to decrease your talking time. You can do this by using gestures instead of speaking too much. When a child starts speaking something to you, let him finish his sentence first. If the child speaks too quietly and slowly, move to him and encourage him to speak louder. In this way, you can also increase confidence level of your child.

• Soothe his separation anxiety
• Be available
• Be Friendly
• Give Respect to the child