A secret for talking to your kids about school

How, what, when, why, and where all matter.

Arriving home I used to ask my sons, “What did you do at school today?”

Their inevitable answer, “Nothing.”

As a parent, I hate nothing. Nothing makes me mad.

“Really, nothing? Nothing at all?” I would respond, getting increasingly frustrated.

“Yeah, nothing.”

The more I would push, the less I would get.

My kids would get exasperated, “Really, Dad, it was a boring day, nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was exactly the same as every day.”

Eventually, I learned the secret is context. Now, instead of asking generally about school, I ask, “Was [REDACTED] mean to you at lunch today?” Knowing they’re studying weather, I ask, “Did you learn anything about clouds today?” About writing, I ask, “How did your story about the octopus end?”

Context changes everything. The more context, the better our conversation. No more “nothings.”

I also learned, the quieter and more intimate the setting, the better the conversation. If I ask at dinner, I might get a 40% answer. At bedtime in the dark, I get a 100% answer. So, my simple formula for conversation with my kids is context X intimacy = conversation.

Ed. note: A version of this was originally published on Tinybop’s blog.