Questions to Ask Your Child

One of the classic “keys to the kingdom,” otherwise known as your child’s private world, is knowing what questions to ask! In the quest for a detailed accounting of “How was your day?,” we are hoping for a little more enthusiasm than “Okay!” The intuitive “What did you do today?” is often met with a resounding – and anticlimactic – “Nothing.” Don’t take it personally! You just need a different way to elicit the specifics for which parental DNA thirsts!

These two gems are the magical questions, because they work like a charm. Two standard queries, asked predictably each day, will most often get you the answers you crave:

What was your favorite (activity, subject, part of your day) today?

What are you looking forward to tomorrow?

Open-ended questions take too much effort to answer, but these cut to the chase. They are conveyed in a casual yet interested style that belies your hunger for the information.

And if you want added insurance, ask the questions when you are together in a closed space, such as in the car! Some of the most important conversations happen there as the years progress, because there is no escape route!

This is a classic case of less is more! The responses will help shape your follow-up questions!