Getting a Child to Talk About Their Day

A month ago I was in Scotland teaching Standard Life executives. During one of the assignments we had given participants, I started talking with the two Leadership and Development people in back of the room. We were discussing children and sharing stories that were both funny and that taught us how to be better parents. At one point in the conversation we talked about how whenever you ask a child after school or during dinner about their day they often say something to the effect of 'It was fine.' I talked about how my daughter does this already as a five year old. One of them then asked me a question about what I would say if someone asked me how my day went. I thought about it and said that I would probably say the same thing. The person said that they know that they often are too tired to want to answer that question. This triggered an idea. I decided that whether calling my daughter from the road or sitting to dinner at home I would start by talking about what I did during the day. Once I had shared I would then ask her to share.

Right after the trip to Scotland I started teaching a course at Executive Education in Ann Arbor. My colleague had all of us doing yoga at the end of the day before people filled out their learning journals. That night at dinner I asked my daughter how her day at school was and she said, 'fine.' This triggered in my mind the conversation in Scotland and I told her about how I had participated in yoga and described it to her. She was fascinated and listened closely. After finishing I asked my daughter again about school and she proceeded to tell me all about her day. Two days later when I got home she was very excited to report that she had done yoga in gym at school and showed me 3 poses. I continue to follow this pattern and my daughter continues to communicate more to me about her day. The interesting thing is that a couple weeks later I was talking to an executive and children came up. Something he said led me to sharing this story. The next day he told me he called home and after getting a normal response he shared with his son how he was in school for the week and what it was like for him. His son was interested and it led to a wonderful conversation where the executive's son told him all about his day.

Question to Consider:

It makes me wonder, how often am I asking others to do things I'm not willing to do without realizing it?