Questions To Ask The Kids Every Night

Well, the kids are back to school, an experience that apparently induces immediate retrograde amnesia. What did you do today? “Nothing.” What was your favorite lesson? “I don’t know.”

The first key to getting any kind of useful information about their day is to ask specific questions. Never: how was your day? what did you do? But: who did you sit next to at lunch? what did you write for your language lesson today? My sister forwarded me a friend’s post of question ideas:

Who have you been sitting by?

Who do you like better this year than last year? Any new kids?

Is anyone in your class struggling? Is anyone all alone?

Has anyone done anything really nice for you?

What’s your favorite part of the day? Least favorite?

What did you do during recess? Who did you play with?

Were you nervous about anything today?

What rule do you hate the most?

What do you like most about your teacher?

The second key is to keep your antennae up, radar on for good moments to talk. Unfortunately, for Ellie and Eric that never seems to be in the car on the way home from school: it’s usually later, during an unexpected moment we have alone in the house, or maybe during our bedtime routine, or even during discipline.

But my favorite new discovery is from this article that Dave sent me, about three questions to ask your kids every night:

How were you brave today?

How were you kind today?

How did you fail today?

I would love to get into the habit of asking these during dinner. They teach kids that they can be brave through small acts. That kindness is important, requires awareness, and can take many forms. That failure is not only okay, but we can choose how we respond to it.

The first time we tried this, we got the usual I-don’t-know’s, but then I shared my answers from my day, and gave them some suggestions for answers, and soon they were coming up with things to share: Eric was brave when he walked into a new library we visited that day. Ellie was brave when she tried a tough math lesson. Eric was kind when he showed a three year-old in his class how to do number rods. Ellie was kind when she was a little friendly (not a lot friendly) to a girl who had pushed her last year when she tried to get a pencil. In typical fashion, Ellie could immediately think of several mistakes from her day, while Eric claimed he had none (and I never could get him to give an answer to that one).

Of course, this conversation only occurred on a day when the younger two were not around, but we’ll have to try it again and see how it goes.