Engaging After School Questions for Your Kids

Are you looking for ways to engage your kids in conversation when they get home from school or over dinner? We all know that there are some kids that come through the door and will tell you chapter and verse about what happened … in extraordinary detail, some of which you may not care to have known (and sadly now you can’t unknow). There are some kids, like my own who was so deeply in the moment that she really couldn’t tell you what had happened… honestly not a clue, if you asked, “So what happened at school today?” And there are other kids who really are just ready to move on to the next thing, so if you get an “It was fine.”, that’s about all you’re going to get. So here are a few ideas to up your conversation game: 

• What was the worst thing you had to do at school today? (Everybody likes to complain)Who did you eat lunch with? Or if they bought lunch, what was for lunch? (Food is a safe entrée into further conversation)
• Did anyone say or do anything funny or weird today? (Another safe entrée point)
• What are you looking forward to tomorrow? (Slightly firmer ground, but still safe) 

These are really non-specific, but if you know that there is a spelling test on Monday, a timed crossword puzzle on Tuesday, a 20-question timed math contest on Wednesday, etc. Asking about those can be very successful if you know they are desperately trying to beat their friend Dora (oh wait, that was me). But you get the idea, is there something peculiar to your kid that you know they really want to accomplish this year?  

And, sometimes and with some kids the best strategy is to look forward, to what they looking forward to that afternoon or evening. Totally take the focus off school and into the immediate future.  

Or maybe even something completely different, like what kind of animal or what color do you feel like right now? If you could be anywhere doing anything what would it be? These can be very good if you sense they had a tough day.   

We will have a link to some other questions and Dinner Table Conversation cards in an upcoming email, but in the meantime if you have some tried and true conversation starters, please let me know so I can share them.  

Simple things, done with great love.