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Q:  Each day when my child gets in the car, I ask her how her day was, and all I get is, “fine.” I know it’s not realistic to ask her Teacher every day, but how can I find out how she spends her day at school?  
A:  It can be disheartening when our interest in our child’s day is met with a lackluster response. Believe it or not, you can get better answers by asking better questions! 

Elementary-age children are in the active process of creating order in their minds -  figuring out what information fits where, recognizing what experiences are mundane versus those that are unique, and discovering what they already know and what is yet to be learned.  Therefore, open-ended questions such as “How was your day?” can actually pose a challenge for elementary students.

Here are 10 questions (and a few follow up questions) you may want to try instead:
1.    What was the best thing that happened at school today?
2.    Tell me something that made you laugh today.
3.    Who did you work with today? What did you do together?
4.    How did you help somebody today? How did someone help you?
5.    Tell me one new thing that you learned today.
6.    When were you the happiest today?
7.    Who would you like to play with at recess that you’ve never played with before?
8.    Tell me something good that happened today.
9.    Who in your class do you think you could be nicer to? What could you do to be nicer to them?
10.    Who is the funniest person in your class? Why is he/she so funny?
Of course, these are just suggestions – you will soon learn which conversation-starters are most likely to help you learn more about your child’s day. 

One final suggestion - let the Springmont website, Facebook and Instagram pages do a little of the legwork; when you get a class announcement or see photos of what’s going on in your child’s class or around campus, be sure to ask about these as well – you may learn something new today!