Be Specific When Asking Kids What They Did at School Today

Q: My kids don’t seem to want to talk about school. When I ask them about their day, all they say is that it was fine. Is this a sign of a problem at school?

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A: “So,” you ask, dinner on the table and the family settled in their usual chairs, “how’d school go today?”

Munch. “OK.” Munch, munch.

“What’d you learn?”

Munch. “Nuthin’.” Munch.

“You must have learned something.”

“Well.” Munch. “Stuff, I guess.” Munch. “You know.” Munch. “Math.” Munch, munch.

When your children stiff-arm your attempts at engaging them in a little conversation, they aren’t necessarily balking at telling you about their day, educational and child-development experts say. Kids have myriad reasons for clamming up over benign questions. As parents, the challenge lies in finding the key to the lip-lock.

But first, you have to understand the lock itself.

The problem, experts say, differs by age group. Young children often suffer from memory overload--too much happens in their lives for them to sort out and share readily in a conversation. Adolescents and teenagers regularly opt for silence to stake out privacy.

Young school-age children need specific questions to get them talking, said Dr. Linda Purrington, principal of Laguna Beach’s El Morro Elementary School. To a developing mind, a broad question like “What did you do today?” can be crippling.

“With the little ones, it’s a long day and a lot happens, and for many of them there’s a lot of time between the actual time they arrive home and when they’re sitting down with their parents,” Purrington said. “It can be hours later. They might not be able to recall the exact details.”

Purrington suggests if you want a better answer, try asking a better question.

“Coach them a little bit. Ask them, ‘Tell me what you’re doing in math. How’s it going? Are you finding it easy or difficult? Show me some problems.’ ”

For children moving through adolescence, sparking meaningful conversation can seem trickier.

“All middle-level students want to talk about themselves,” said Linda Lee, a counselor at McAuliffe Middle School in the Los Alamitos Unified School District. “But they don’t always know what adults mean. They’re too peer-oriented. They think parents are being intrusive.”

If you and your child haven’t developed the pattern of sharing thoughts with each other early on, it will be tough to change that at this point.

“There is not a more mistrusting group, because so much is changing in their bodies and their lives,” Lee said.

Don’t give up, she said. Keep up your curiosity about school.

“I would encourage [parents] to know when all the reporting periods are, when all the teacher conferences are, so that when they bring up what’s going on in school, they bring up something they already know about,” Lee said, adding that regular contact with teachers can give parents fuel for conversation. “Offer a situation you want the student to discuss with you.”

Try beginning your conversation as you might at a cocktail party, she said, maybe starting with a reminiscence of your own experiences in a certain class.

“It makes it less threatening if parents begin by talking about themselves,” Lee said.

Finally, realize and respect that sometimes adolescents just don’t feel like talking.

“Teenagers are beginning to mature, and they’re undergoing the process of separating from their parents and trying to become independent in their own right,” said Dr. Lawrence Sporty, a senior lecturer in psychiatry at UC Irvine. “The idea of them sharing everything that goes on in their lives with their parents goes against their push for independence. That doesn’t automatically mean there’s anything wrong or bad going on.”