How to Know If Your Child Is Doing Well at School Without Asking Boring Questions
Very often, children don’t want to share their impressions and problems after school. But we can help them open up, we just need to ask the right questions.
We at 5-Minute Crafts will show you ways to make conversation with your child.
Pay attention to their mood.
Before you start asking a child questions, check to see what mood they’re in. Don’t push it, hug them, and just be there. If their mood is great, make a joke, say something about yourself, and let them relax after the day — only then start asking questions.
Start a conversation with an observation.
If your child is not eager to talk about what happened at school, share an observation and give them a topic to talk about. It may be something about their class, books, or teachers. Just choose something they’re interested in.
Tell them something about yourself.
When we talk about ourselves, we give children a choice: to join in the conversation or just listen to you. Tell them about something interesting that happened to you at work or about the time you were a child. There’s a chance the child will respond and you’ll learn how their day at school was.
Don’t ask general questions that can be answered with one word.
Ask open questions that are hard to respond to with one word. For example, “What did you do during the first lesson?” or “Who did you talk to today?”
Ask a question without eye contact.
This might seem illogical, but Varda Meyers Epstein, a parenting expert, says, “Eye contact makes kids feel put on the spot, so they close up and don’t respond to you.” No eye contact will help the child relax and not feel as if they are being “interrogated.”
Bonus: specific questions you can ask your child
- Which lesson did you like the most and why?
- What was the most interesting thing you learned from the teacher?
- What inspired you today?
- Which lesson made you feel confident?
- If you could replace one subject, which would it be?
- What made you laugh?
- If you were on a deserted island with a classmate, who would it be and why?
- Has your teacher said anything today that made you think about things?
- When I was in school, there were kids that were a bit rude and didn’t behave. Have you noticed anything like that in your school?
- Was there something you wanted to learn but had no time to ask the teacher?
- What’s your favorite place in school?