Every parent will ask their school kid this very question every school day.
It is even more meaningful to working parents, who normally carry this inside guilt of not spending enough time with their children. This is probably not true depending on who you ask, but we beat ourselves nevertheless. We don’t have visibility of the goings-on at the school yard. We expect that a simple question will be the pre-cursor to a decent conversation with our children. Well, at least, this is is what I hope to get into. I also think that it is easier with girls; as girls are known to be chatty. But boys, well boys are chatty when they are really young. As they get older, you are lucky to even get eye contact. Usually, a vague “good” and a shrug are all you get!
One day, the school sent out an article in the newsletter about ways to needle out information from our youngsters. One of them was to ask five (5) things your kid did at school everyday. Easier said than done, this was. I was lucky if I got to thing number three! My son felt like he was being tortured with the 5 things!
One mum intimated that her son would say, “I talked, I walked, I laughed, I ate and I drank”!
Another one said, her son would go, “I took one step, then another, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth step”! I kid you not. Our children are smart as, and they know how to spin us around!
Then I stumbled upon the “Three Questions”.
You are supposed to ask:
1) what was the highlight of their day or happiest moment;
2) what made them sad;
3) and what new thing they learned today.
Voila, it worked like magic. Our chats suddenly had a direction. Still, I occasionally get two moments rolled into one. That is, the highlight was also what they learned. For example, learning Chinese. Does it matter? We are actually having a conversation here!
What methods do you use to make your kids talk? Share it!
mpbajar says
nice one! with us, the reply was always “good”. then we said, overcome mediocrity. ngayon naman, ang sagot, laging “great!”. hmmm, nag improve ba?