How to Ask Your Kids About Their School Day

Hey, hey!

Is your household still basking in the glow of summer? Or are you like us and summer is a distant memory? We are in the middle of week 2 of school. How long until Winter Break???

These days, it’s a good morning if mommy only yells a few times “Hurry Up! The bus will be here soon.” Sad, but true. Please tell me I’m not the only one.

I saw this really cool graphic on CNN recently that showed a sampling of when school starts throughout the United States. It seems more and more schools are moving to August start dates. Interesting, right?

Here’s the full CNN article. Image below from the rockin’ graphics department at CNN.

Moving on…

I genuinely do want to know what happens at school. There’s this whole chunk of my children’s day when they aren’t with me and it’s kind of weird to not know what’s going on. My children usually tell me they forgot what happened at school. My personal favorite is when they say “nothing happened.” Awesome and more awesome.

This means I have to be more subtle about how I go about extracting information. That’s why I LOVED this blog post by Simple Simon and Company about clever ways of asking your child how their day went or what happened at school.

When I use these techniques, I get much better responses. I just have to be prepared for their answers! Yesterday I heard, “I was talking during nap time, mom!” DOH!

Simple Simon and Company did a follow-up post about how to ask your TEENS how their day went too. I should probably study that list of questions so that I’ll be prepared in 5 years when I have a teenager. *don’t want to think about it*

In other Back-to-School news, have you read this poem? I’m sure if you are in the education community you’ve seen it a million times, but it cracked me up.

“Twas the Night Before School Started”

Twas the night before school started
when all through the town
the parents were cheering
it was a riotous sound.

By eight the kids were washed
and tucked into bed
when memories of homework
filled them with dread.

New pencils, new folders, new notebooks too,
new teachers, new friends, the anxiety grew.
The parents just giggled when they heard of this fright
and shouted upstairs – GO TO BED-IT’S A SCHOOL NIGHT!
-author unknown

Last, but not least, we started the first day of school off right with our “First Day of School Giant Cookie” Tradition.

If you want 5 easy ways to celebrate the first day of school, here are some ideas.

I am so, so, so happy that my kids have been blessed with amazing teachers thus far in their education. What teachers do every single day to engage, inspire and educate a diverse group of students…well, it just boggles my mind. God bless them, every one.

I have some more parenting stories. It’s a well that keeps on giving, isn’t it?

Mom, Do We Hate Donald Trump?

Kid Wisdom: Everyday Superheroes 

Two Children’s Books That Made My Eyes Leak