How to Get Your Child to Talk About Their Virtual School Day
If the kids seemed like they had nothing to say about their day at school before the pandemic, it’s no surprise that they are not interested in discussing their day now. They used to actually leave the house several days a week! Previously, they moved to another building, separate from your house, where life was in full swing ! They usually ate lunch that you didn’t prepare and had conversations that you couldn’t overhear. So many things happened in a day, but it all felt mundane enough that by the time you picked them up, there was not enough one or two grunts in your general direction.
Considering that their days continue to flow in endless pandemic monotony, it makes sense if they don’t want to make out their entire day for you. But you should still try to get them to talk – and here are some tips to get you started.
Give them some space
Children are often the most moody right after school. For young children, they spend all day trying to be good and to focus (maybe it’s even more of a struggle now than usual). When they finished, they did. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for a kid to have a great day at school and then melt epic 30 seconds after getting into your car. After all, you are their safe place.
When I was still picking up my son from school, I tried not to ask about his present day immediately after meeting him. I told him I missed him and started grumble about my own day. The pressure was released on him to strike up a conversation, and he often interjected clarifying questions or said, “Yes, I also had a busy day; there was this math test I forgot to prepare for … ”Then I brought him home, grabbed a snack and let him relax in front of the TV – and I kept all my questions about his day for dinner time when he was more in the mood for a chat.
You should do the same now: don’t ask how you were in school until they even turned off their Chromebook. They have little or no experience; they don’t want to talk about it yet. (And if they do , they will come to you.) Especially when the lines between work, school, and play are so blurred, allow them to step back a bit from school and after school during the day.
Don’t ask boring questions
If you ask how the school went, they will tell you that everything was fine. If you ask what they have learned, they will say they have learned nothing. Ask a boring question, expect a boring answer. If you want them to dig a little deeper, you may need to improve your hint game. Ask them what they learn in history class (so what, what could we learn?) And if the spelling test was as hard as they thought. You have the advantage right now that you have at least some idea of what is going on in their “classroom” so that you can better tailor your questions so that they talk about what you know they like or an activity. in which they participated. …
However, I would not overdo it here. Sometimes parents can go too far with cute talking tips. I tend to think that starting a conversation like “Tell me how kind you were today” can sound rather tense, especially for older children. “Who made you smile today?” going to make your teen moan and roll their eyes at you, and rightly so.
Tell them about your day
As I mentioned earlier, children learn to share their day by following your example. It doesn’t have to be interrogation; it must be about reuniting your family after another long day of the pandemic. My husband and I have enough discussion about our work at the dinner table for our 10-year-old to really become interested in what we are doing. He knows the names of many of my colleagues, and now he walks into my home office almost every morning and asks what I am writing about today. (He even comes up sometimes with his own ideas – he was the one who said I should tell my parents about the Prodigy .)
This created a natural response for me: “What about you? What’s on your agenda today? And he’ll tell me a story he needs to read, or that he’s tired of long division and wants to move on to fractions. He is almost certainly at least partially postponing his work for today, but that suits me.
Plus, talking about your day in the morning can be great food for the future. You can tell them how your project went and then ask if they were interested in the story.