Hints for getting kids to open up about their day

[velochic]

Dd is 3.5 yo and attends a private language immersion school. To make a long story short, we are a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-lingual household, so sending dd to a school that is particularly geared toward world cultures and languages is a priority in our house. Yes, it's expensive, but we have trimmed a lot out of our lives to make it happen financially. We are really committed to our dd going to this school. We've also already paid for this year, so we are particularly interested in getting her to feel comfortable at this school.

The problem is... the school is very tight-lipped about everything and it's really starting to bother me. We were wooed by the small class size (max of 12) and the weekly updates, etc. But getting any information other than, "Oh, your dd is doing fine!" is next to impossible. They do send home "this is what we worked on this week" reports, but nothing specific about my dd in these weekly updates.

So, here I am, everyday trying to get dd to tell me about school and you can imagine how that is like pulling teeth!! She's only 3.5. Then I hear things like, "I don't like lunch because they don't let me eat." "Everyone gets put into time-out everyday... but I don't" (yea, like I'm going to believe she's the only perfect angel in class!! :LOL ) "A little boy pulled my arm and it hurt." I want to get to the root of these things before approaching the teacher about them but I don't know how. At her age, I know she isn't "lying", but I'm sure she's not savvy enough to completely understand what is going on. I really need help getting her to open up to me. Any suggestions? Leading questions I can ask? How do I get her to explain herself when she does make these comments?

TIA and sorry so long... this is our first experience with school, so I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants here.

[babybugmama]

Actually given her age you want to be careful of asking leading questions. For example if you say, "did johnny pull your arm today?" her reply will easily be, "yes..." regardless of truth. Not because she's lying, but because the question pulls for a yes.

You might try some open ended questions like, "what was the best thing about lunch today?" and "what was the worst/not best thing about lunch today?" And then do that for morning, afternoon, specific classes...that kind of thing. Other questions, who is the most fun person to play with? Who is harder to play with?

I also think there is nothing wrong with telling the teachers that hey, I need more detail than she's doing fine! I used to drive dh nuts when I worked wanting to know what she ate, when she napped, etc...I needed to know.

Good luck

[Teensy]

With my DS at that age, I had to ask pretty specific questions. What did you eat for snack? Who did you sit next to at circle time? Was the book your teacher read you about a boy, a girl, or an animal?

Have you spent a day in the classroom yet? That really helped me figure out what questions to ask (knowing the choices at center time, etc.).

Lately I've been able to ask what was the best thing/worst thing about your day at school. That can be prety enlightening.

I also feel the need to know what is going on!

[KalamazooMom]

When our DD was first in day care I got annoyed at the lack of info I thought they were passing on to me. We got a sheet every day that basically said when she went to the toilet, how long she slept, and what she had for lunch. Occasionally there'd be a note about what she played with. I really wanted more detail such as who she played with, what activities she seemed to enjoy, etc. My DH pointed out that any extra time the staff would have to take to record those kind of details they wouldn't be actually interacting with or attending to our kid. So I kind of chilled out after that, since I agreed that the primary thing was for them to be with the kids.

However, I do agree with PP's who said to ask open ended questions like what was the best thing and what was the worst thing. Also, I found when I quit asking or nagging her I got more info. She would tell me a detail about her day while we were doing something else, however when I asked specifically she would say " I don't remember."

Also, I HIGHLY recommend volunteering for anything you can-- chaperone a field trip, help with a party, etc. That's when you really get the scoop!

[aishy]

I don't know if this would work at that age b/c i never tried it with my son till this year but I ask questions like "what was your favorite work you did at school today?" and what his favorite thing he did overall was. and etc. The school he goes to has the lesson plans, homework, everything online at renweb.com which is great because it gives me the chance to know what to ask about more specifically. Like, he never would have shared with me the elephant poem they've learned I bet but I asked about it specifically.

We do favorite questions an awful lot around here. After we watch movies, read a story, etc. it seems to open up a discussion easily and since it's their "favorite" they are interested rather than me trying to bring up something without knowing if they would care or not!

aisling

[Eggie]

I suffered the same when my DD started School, also because she was not 2 years old yet and she couldn't tell me anything about it. Even though she only goes from 9:30 to 2:00, it was really hard, but I had to work so... This is a small School, not a Day Care, and the Principal is a wonderful person that understood my needs of knowing more about my DD's experiences everyday. I do get a daily report about her meals (breakfast and lunch), diaper changes and special activities that they do but I wanted to know more so I asked the teachers to film some of the activities for me. Once a week or at least each 15 days I send the Digital Camera and they film for me the songs they sing, the lunch time, the birthday parties, etc. That makes me so happy because we can watch it a many times as we want and my DD can tell me about her friends and sing with me the songs that we are watching together. The filming is done by the Principal and it only takes 10 minutes from her time. In this School you are not allowed to stay with your kids in the Classroom, rule that I understand because of security reasons for the children (we live in Mexico City, famous for kidnappings ) and I don't think I would be too comfortable having many parents in the school while they are on classes, although you can watch them thorough monitors in the Principal's office. I also call once or maybe twice a day to ask how is my DD doing and they usually tell me what are they playing or what activity are they doing. The information that I did ask her teachers to write me down ( and yes, it took a little bit of time away from them being with the kids), was the name of each of the kids in her classroom. That helped me a lot because I can ask my DD about her friends, and she will happily tell me that she likes this kid or that she played with the other one. I also organized a meeting party with the other parents of her classroom to get to know them and this was really good as now we can share our concerns and ideas. I think the best thing for me was to keep a very open communication with the Principal. It's very hard to not know every second of the lives of our little ones but I'm sure she's having a great time playing with her new friends . What language is your little one learning at School?

[CarrieMF]

What is wrong with making an appointment with the teacher and asking her about the things your dd is saying. It does not have to be confrontational, just a this is what she's told me and due to her age I was just wanting some clarification.

[UUMom]

wrong thread

[siddie]

I never had much luck with the best/worst or fav type questions. I usually ask him who he likes to play with, what they ate for lunch, did they sing songs at circle time, and that will jog his memory if anything else happened he wants to talk about. Stay for a few minutes in the morning to check things out if you can. Make and appt to volunteer in the class to see how it's run. Bring healthy treats in at lunch so you can observe. I think you should clarify the discipline process, it is usually one of the first questions I ask when checking out a school.

When she says everyone gets put into time out, ask her what they did before time out. Ask her where they go for time out, does she think time out is fun or something silly to make her laugh and open up.

What little boy pulled your arm? What were you doing when he pulled your arm? Did you tell the teacher? (they may not know to tell the teacher if someone hurts them.)

[lorijds]

As far as the pulling the arm thing goes, or any sort of negative interaction, I try to ask several questions about it, and it culminates is "Do you want me to talk to the teacher about it?" and "What will you do next time in this situation?" (my kids are 7 and 10, so obviously you would alter it a bit for different ages).

Sometimes it's a situation where my kids is just grumpy and needs to vent. I've actually never had to go in and talk to a teacher; if it's a chronic problem that needs to be addressed, the working through what my child should do next time helps. We try to help her come up with ideas on how to interact with the other child/teacher/whoever the next time a similar situation comes up, and if that doesn't solve it, what is the chain of command and who should she speak with regarding the situation, and how she could approach them. I want her to know I'll go to bat for her, but I also don't want to attempt to solve all her problems for her. So I'm hoping this way will help fulfill my needs to protect her and solve all her problems, and her needs to figure out how to solve problems herself, while still feeling supported.

At supper every day, everyone has to tell about three things that happened during that day, and for the kids, something that happened at recess can be shared, but doesn't count towards your three. Everyone gets to hear what everyone else is doing, and we try to prompt questions. For example, I know that Wednesdays my youngest dd goes to the library. So I always ask about her trip to the library if she can't think of anything else to say. If she tells me, "Today we went to the library, we had gym, and we did a spelling test." I'll ask about what book she picked out, what game they played in gym, and how she did (or, if she doesn't know the result, how she thinks she did) on the spelling test. Did she like the game she played at gym? Who was on her team? Sometimes a combination of open ended questions, some with easy (who was on your team?) answers and some with hard, more thoughtful answers (why didn't you like the game?) are nice, and I think it promotes thoughtful discussion at the dinner table. My dh and I also tell three things that we did at school (dh is a teacher) or at work, and we try to share some interesting details about each thing, as kind of an example, and also so the kids actually know what we do!

We've done this so long that it is becoming second nature. When one of us can't be home for supper (as often happens, about three or four times a week), then the parent who is home still does the "three things" conversation. For a while, between school and work I was NEVER home for supper, so we did it at breakfast.

Anyhow, I hope that helps. When you look through their papers, you can get an idea of what they are doing at school, and that is helpful for prompting, too. Oldest dd is studying American History this year. So everyonce in a while I ask what she's working on right now. Sometimes we'll go to the library and read about something that she feels they skipped too quickly. Recently youngest dd's class did a butterfly unit. This weekend we read in the paper about a local university's open house in its monarch tagging program, so we went and had a blast. Dd #1 told us about what she remembered from the unit when she was in second grade, we looked around at the flowers, etc, learned to tag butterfies, and signed up for an official tagging session next weekend held at some area wetlands. I think connecting school and home helps facilitate more information about what goes on at school, too (when we were at the tagging presentation, when he asked where you were supposed to place the tag, my youngest dd jumped up and down and told me all about how they learned how to do that...I didn't even know they actually tagged their butterflies until that point).

Hope that helps!

Lori

[behr]

Wow, Lori, that is one response.
Thanks a bunch!! I love the 'three things' idea and will try that starting tomorrow.