“Honey, how was your day?”
Do you get frustrated by one word answers or a short recitation with no stories? No clues about how your child is doing? Years ago, my husband and I saw the movie The Story of Us, and (besides the interesting should-we-get-divorced story), we were really impressed by a dinner table ritual this family used. We’ve adapted and added to it for a couple of reasons, and it’s evolved into…
High…Low…High
In one minute you can learn how to get whole stories from your kids (and your spouse) and have really great, meaningful conversations in the car, at dinner, during bedtime… wherever works.
Done with stories?
For great conversation that does not rely on how someone’s day went, check out this amazing list of questions you can ask your family. My favorites are
- What job would you NEVER want?
- If you were a candy which one would you be?
- If you received 1 million dollars and you were required to donate it to charity, where would you give?
4 thoughts on “How to Get Kids to Talk About Their Day”
Great idea! I can see this exercise building compassion in kids, too – they get invested in someone else’s news like you said, and it also gets them to think about other people’s feelings. Sometimes I ask my kids what’s one funny/interesting thing that happened today, or who got into trouble today, or anything that requires them to provide details.
We used to do alphabet games and let’s pretend that we’re out to dinner with a new girlfriend/boyfriend’s family and use our best table manners, or speak in different accents, as ice breakers to get them started.
Basically anything to get my kids to not complain about what they are eating is my goal at mealtimes. 🙂
We do this in our family and call it “roses, thorns, buds”. Love it!
Great name!
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