25 Questions to Ask Your Child About Their Day
When our children head out the door and off to school, it’s amazing how much we miss about their day while we are away. If you think about it, your child is away from the home once they start school for more hours than they are home and awake during the week. That means, to keep communication open with our children we have to be creative, and nudge and urge them to keep sharing and talking with us about their lives.
Have you ever picked up your children from school and with enthusiasm asked, “How was your day?” If you have, I’m sure you’ve received a response much like I do. A quick, “It was good.” The end. That’s all folks.
It’s not that our children don’t want to share with us, especially in those elementary school years but even up through their teen years. Kids want to have a connection with their parents. I stop and think sometimes about how I respond when a friend or colleague asks me a similar question: “How are you doing?” How quick am I to just hastily reply, “I’m doing fine.” Without much thought behind the response. I’m sure we could all say a lot more about how we are doing that a quick 3 word reply, but it takes some practice.
Here are some question prompts that can help keep your questions interesting, varied, and help you remind your children to reflect back on their day and share with you a piece of their lives.
25 Questions to Ask Your Child About Their Day
- What’s the best thing that happened today?
- Where did you play at recess today?
- Can you show me what you worked on in class?
- Did anything make you feel [sad, angry, lonely, upset, frustrated, etc] today?
- What did you learn about in [insert subject] class today?
- Did you help anyone at school?
- How did you feel today?
- Who do you play with at recess?
- Did you forget anything today?
- Do you want to learn more about any of the topics you are studying?
- Did you try anything new today?
- Can you teach me something you are learning about?
- How did the [science project, math test, assembly, field trip, etc] go?
- Did anything funny happen at school?
- What’s the worst thing that happened today?
- Who did you sit by at lunch?
- Did you make any new friends?
- What is one thing you would change about your day?
- Did you learn anything new about yourself?
- Is there someone you can be a better friend to tomorrow?
- Was there anything exciting about your day?
- How were you a good friend today?
- Is there a school subject you would like help with?
- Can you show me how your teacher is teaching you?
- What do you want to do different tomorrow?
When you get started with a question, let it be simply that – a starting point – to spark a full conversation! Don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions and encourage complete sentence responses.
Share your question ideas in the comments to build on this question list!
My husband told me to ask if anyone got into trouble that day. She opened up and talked.
Great post. Congratulations, you won the Inspire Me Monday Linky Party!
Janice
Thank you for this! I’ll ask how was your day and I get the same “good”. This definitly gives more options than the basic lunch & recess questions which thankfully I’m not the only one either!! :)Awesome post!
Kristine 🙂
Stopping over from Hit Me with your Best Shot. There are great ideas that I haven’t used and a lot of them would work with my toddler!
Melanie
http://www.theseblankwalls.com
This is a great list! I learned a long time ago to ask what the best part/worst part of their day was. Sometimes asking them which “special” (art/music/gym) they had today will jog their memory to tell me a story, too.
We always try to initiate conversation with them when they get home from school. Not to drill them or anything, but just to make sure their day went well.
These are great questions. I usually get in a rut and ask the usual “how was your day?” But I need to be more specific to get more details from my kids.
These are great questions!! I know I have asked my kids before the generic question and gotten the same response as your kids. Thinking outside the box is important to getting kids to answer
I did ask questions similar to this when my oldest was younger. When asked appropriately it can lead to fun conversation and not an inquisition.
These are mostly the questions I ask my kids when I pick them from school. We love having this kind of conversation.
Wow a lot of those questions are great question to initiate a conversation. I usually ask things like about who did you sit with at lunch or who did you play with at recess and what fun thing did you do during class but I never thought of some of the other ones. I’ll have to make a mental note of them so I am not always asking the same question all the time. Great post. I am doing this kinda parent thing again after many years by helping my daughter raise her 5 year old son.
These are all great questions to spark a conversation and find out about your childs day. I often ask my kids to tell me about their day.