Are you excited for kindergarten?
I asked my son this countless times in the past weeks. This is such a big step for him. I wanted to ensure he was supported and it was something we talked through. Every time he responded with, “yes!” Every. Single. Time.
I asked the other day, “What do you think about kindergarten, eh?” in which he responded, “I’m feeling kinda scared.” WHAT? I thought. I said to myself, but you kept saying you were excited. I started thinking – what changed? Well Mamas, I figured out what changed.
My question.
Open-ended questions are extremely powerful, and definitely have their place in the role of being Mama. When I asked the question, “Were you excited …” I was ultimately feeding him the answer that I wanted to hear. The beauty about small children, is they often do not know what answer you want to hear. That really is a beautiful thing. They will avoid people pleasing and be their awesome innocent and honest self. They will only do this under a few conditions, though.
1. Ask open-ended questions frequently
Open-ended questions can be a very difficult thing for some children, most children actually. There are an infinite number of answers, and so to land on just one is quite the challenge. The vast possibility of answers will often lead the child to respond, “I don’t know” They did have something to share, but they either just couldn’t land on just one answer or they couldn’t explain the answer.
2. Accept their answer
Our kiddos learn really quick when we don’t like something. They adore us and typically want us to be proud and happy with them. So, when they share something that we don’t like, they will often times clam up and stop sharing. Some ways we may respond in dislike include:
“Oh we don’t say that”
“You know you shouldn’t do that”
“Well, why do you think that happened, hmmm”
If they have something on their little heart that you won’t approve of, or if you tend to be overly critical when they share, you will see them start sharing less. Yes, correction has its place. Answering open-ended questions and conversing with you is so important though, try to be an active listener and find another time to address it if possible.
3. Continually encourage conversation
Kid’s love talking about themselves and their day. They haven’t developed perspective taking skills fully at this point, so they are all about THEM. The more you talk about them, what they like, and the things they think are funny – the more they are going to want to talk to you.
So, what do you do if your child is having a difficult time answering these open-ended questions?
If after trying the three steps above they still need a little extra support
- Set a special time each day to talk (maybe at the dinner table?) where you ask and work through an open-ended question. This week’s FREEBIE is a fabulous pack of open-ended question cards you can use! You can head over to the freebies tab to check it out and more!
- Share about YOUR day to provide them a model (share in a way they can relate) “I was sweeping the deck and do you know what I found? A leaf bug! Isn’t that so interesting!”
- Give them choices, and work up to open-ended questions (Did you like reading books or playing with the toys best today at the library?) Then switch it later in the day to, “What was your favorite part of the library?” If they respond, “I don’t know” then you can say – “Oh yeah, you told me the books was your favorite part”
The awesome thing about talking with our kids, is that it’s almost impossible to get it “wrong.” They love talking to you, so just start doing it and grow in it together. When they get home from school today, I dare you to ask the question that Mamas everywhere desperately want to know the answer to …
“What did you do in school today?”
Let me know if you actually get an answer (sigh)