Getting a conversation with your child going about school

Getting my son to talk about what happened at school as always been difficult. He doesn't provide a lot of information, and he is not particularly motivated to talk about it. Here are some things we have used to improve our conversations about school. It is by no means perfect, but we do get some information.

Share information about your day
Talk about things that happened in your own day to model the type of information you want to hear about. Don't expect your child to share information about their day immediately. But, with time they will understand what type of information to share.

Don't force the conversation
Right after school or at the dinner table is generally when we want to hear about the day. This might not be the best time for your child. They might prefer to give information just before bed, or when you are playing together. You can try asking a general question like "how was school today?". If the aren't interested in sharing anything further than fine, try again later. My son often likes to share information in the bathtub or right before bed. I guess this is when he is relaxed and there are no competing toys or screens.

Try being silly
One of our therapists recommended this approach. You can try asking them if they did something completely wacky to get them to open. For example, ask "Did you fly to the moon today?". Hopefully, they will think that it such as silly thing to say they will tell you something they actually did. I have found that this didn't work particularly well for my son. But, there is no harm in trying.

Get the teacher to send home a calendar or agenda
It is always nice to have a clue as to how to start the conversation. An agenda can be helpful to give you this piece of information. If you know that your child had gym or went to the library, it can be a conversation starter.

Ask specific questions
Once you have your agenda with at least a snippet of information, you're set to ask questions. You can ask "what did you do in gym today", or even "did you play soccer in gym today". This might be just enough to get the conversation started.