That's the Spirit - Episode 1

In this episode of That's the Spirit, the host discusses ways to learn more about a child's day. The guest, Whitney Garcia, shares her experience of trying to get information from her four-year-old daughter. They emphasize the importance of asking open-ended questions and avoiding yes or no questions. The host introduces the "Give Me Three" strategy, where parents ask their children to share something good, something not so good, and something they did from their day. They discuss the benefits of this approach, such as encouraging children to think about their day and improving communication between parents and children. They also highlight the need to avoid filling in gaps and to ask follow-up questions to understand the child's experience better. Overall, the episode provides practical tips for parents to engage in meaningful conversations with their children about their school day. Hello, and welcome to That's the Spirit. I'm Kelly Broaddus. I am the head of school at Holy Spirit, and I will be your host today. We are going to talk about ways to learn about your child's day. I know that with my own kids, it's been hard at times to really find out what happened during the day besides, I really enjoyed lunch, or recess was my favorite. That's usually what you can get out of them, or did you have a good day? Yes. Or what did you like? I don't know. I don't remember. Those are always the things that you can get from your kids. I also wanted to introduce Whitney Garcia. She is our communications director here at Holy Spirit Episcopal School. Whitney, why don't you say hello? Hi. I'm happy to be here. Whitney, I wanted you to also talk about you're a mom as well, and have you experienced that? Have you ever had your child not give you the information you really wanted from her school day? Yes, absolutely. She's four, so getting information out of her is difficult anyway, but especially after a long school day, it can be tough just to get her to talk at all. Usually I get, I don't remember, or nothing, or just silence, and because I really do want to know what kind of books she read, and what friends she played with, it would be nice to have some tricks up my sleeve to be able to get more out of her. Absolutely. I know, too, a lot of times as parents, we want to know what they've learned. We want to know the progress they're making, and kids really aren't aware of the things that they're learning, or what they're developing in, or what their progress is, and so sometimes pulling that out of them, we need a little bit of help even from the teachers, and knowing things, so we'll go over some of those tips as well, of ways that you can partner with your child's teacher to be able to find out that information, to bring it out a little more naturally, and get them talking to you. One of the things that I would say, too, just a really quick tip, and I'm going to give you kind of a strategy in just a minute, but one of the things is try to avoid asking yes or no questions, because you really want them to be able to respond with more narrative, with being able to say more, reflecting more on what they're doing, but you need a little bit more prompting to be able to do that. So just saying, how was your day? It was good. That's great, but we want a little bit more, right? You would love to know, like you said, who she played with, what were the books that she read, did they do an activity that was really fun, or got her messy, or that's, those are some of the things that can get her talking. And I know, too, I've read an apparent newsletter, and have found out that they had this cool presentation, and I'll ask about it. Oh, yeah, that was pretty cool. I'm like, why didn't you tell me, you know? So just being able to have some of those things, too, up your sleeve to be able to pull out and ask. And the other thing is, too, we almost immediately do want to know about their day, but they're tired when they get in that car to go home, or when they get off that bus, you know, whatever it is, however your child comes home, they're exhausted. And so they don't really want to talk, so trying to balance, too, when to ask them questions, when to press, is always a good thing. So let's go ahead and start with the strategy that I want to be able to give you as a tool to talk to your child about her day. And what I have always said to my kids is, give me three. Three is a really good number. It's one of those things that kids can handle, you can remember. And so these are the three things, just say, give me three, these are the three things you can ask your kids for. So one is, tell me something good that happened today. And then you're allowing them, you gave them focus, something good. Let's think about what happened in your day that you really enjoyed, maybe a friend you made, maybe a presentation that was done, maybe a visitor came to class, a book you really liked, but just something good. Because we all, as parents, too, we want to know the things that might not be going well, and so we want to find that out, too. So tell me something not so good, and that's where you can find out a little bit more, too. And we're going to talk about that in a minute, I'll come back to it, because you do have to be careful that you're not feeding what you think they might be saying or filling in gaps that may not be there. But so number one, tell me something good. Number two, tell me something not so good. And then number three, tell me something you did. Because that also changes the focus from, it's not just the experience your child had, whether it was good or bad, but it's then getting into, oh, we did a project where we sat at the table and we got paint out and we created this project together. That's where you'll start getting some of those answers, rather than just, I ate lunch, I sat next to this friend at the table, but they're actually focused on telling you something that you did. So those are the three. So give me three. Tell me something good about your day. Tell me something not so good about your day. Tell me something you did. And if you repeat this on a daily basis or, you know, as often as possible, your kids will start to just do it for you. So if you say give me three, you'll have your child say, okay, something good, and they'll tell you that. Okay, something not so good, and they'll tell you that. And then something I did, they'll start filling that in, which is awesome, when they kind of start being able to do that. And they know what to expect, and that's what we want to get to, is that they know what to expect out of a conversation with you. You know what to expect out of their day and what they're like when they get home. So let's go back to number one. Tell me something good about your day. So we want to hear all the things, right? You want to hear every little piece of their day, but especially when kids are really young, they just don't remember. Kids very much live in the now, and so what is going on right now is what they know. It's kind of hard to remember what happened earlier. So I think that would be the boundary I'd give for parents, is don't push too much. If you get them to tell you about something good that happened in their day, let it stand. You don't need to push for more and more and more. You're going to get the answer to the other two questions coming up. But if you just have them tell you something good, they are going to tell you about the fun they had on the playground, or maybe it's something in PE, or in Spanish, or whatever that lights them up that they really like. It is also possible you'll hear about that same class every day, but you're hearing something, right? And is that something that you feel like your daughter could do? Could she give you something good out of her day? Is that something you feel like you could elaborate on? Yeah, absolutely. And I think more often than not, it would probably be what she had for lunch, and maybe that was the best part of her day. But I think she would be able to come up with something good, and to your point, it would probably be the last thing she could remember. So maybe it might have been if they went to the playground right before school got out, it might be that she played on the playground. She probably won't recall something that happened at 8 a.m., so I think that's a great strategy. And even at 4, I think she could definitely come up with something good. Yeah, exactly. She definitely could. And it might take a little practice, too. She may not be able to give you a lot of words about something good right away, but just be patient. And again, if she has that expectation that you're going to be asking, if she knows that that's coming every day, during her day, she'll actually start thinking, oh, this is good. Oh, I want to tell my mom about that when she asks me about something good. And so that's where the practice of this will just start growing. So it may not be, this isn't going to be some magical tool that all of a sudden the first time you ask her the three questions, she's just going to start telling you everything. But with practice, she'll start to elaborate. So I definitely think you'll see that. And you'll also probably hear the name of a friend multiple times because of something good. Then when you get to number two, something not so good, that is where they're going to tell you, I got bit by an ant when I was sitting outside. I spilled my milk. Those are the things that you're probably going to hear about. If you consistently hear about, a friend was mean to me, that's where you reach out to the teacher. Right? Oh, what happened? How did that make you feel? Ask open-ended questions. The thing to avoid, as I kind of said earlier, is you don't want to fill in the gaps for them. So a lot of times we will say, oh, well, my friend wouldn't play with me. Were they mean to you? That's filling in the gaps. So just because someone wouldn't play with your child doesn't mean they were mean. It might mean they wanted to play in the kitchen area or they wanted to play soccer and your child didn't. And so, yes, their friend didn't play with them, but it wasn't because of something mean. It was because they wanted to choose something different. And so we need to avoid filling those gaps, but it is important to recognize that our kids do have disappointments in their day. That's how they learn. That's how they figure out how to change course. Let me choose something else. Can I compromise? If I want to play with this friend, but I didn't really want to play soccer, do I want to play with the friend more than I don't want to play soccer? Right? That's what we're looking for. So ask those open-ended questions. So my friend didn't play with me, if that's the answer, oh, really, how did that make you feel? It kind of made me sad, but you'll usually hear something else. But then I did this. It kind of made me sad. Did you tell her? Yes, I told her. Did she respond to you? I mean, you can ask those questions as well, but instead of filling in, what did she mean to you? Did she say something that you didn't like? Did she call you a name? Those kinds of questions, when kids don't know the answer, they're actually going to tend to tell you yes, because a lot of times they're not sure. They realize you're having an emotion, an emotional reaction, and they want you to feel better. So they'll kind of try to appease what you're asking, so try your best. If you do ask it, because we're all human, and that's kind of human nature, so if you do accidentally ask that, just try to redirect the conversation. It's okay. But that's where you're going to start hearing something not so good. Most of the time, the not so good is going to be really minor, but remember that even minor things, especially for young kids, and that's even lower school, middle school age, a minor thing can be a big deal to them. So even when we think, oh, that's not so bad, just pay attention to your child. Was that something that affected them? Is that something you might need to make the teacher aware of? It may not be. Most of the time, it's not going to be, but if it's a repeated thing or you can tell it really affects your child, you might want to have a conversation with the teacher. So let's go back. So number one, tell me something good. Number two, tell me something not so good. And now we get to number three, and I think number three is where you'll a lot of times get the answers you really want. Tell me something you did today. And I always thought it was interesting what my kids answered when I asked what something you did. I discovered that my son loves science. I don't know that I would have even known that if it weren't for the fact that almost always when he answered something he did, it was some experiment or activity that he did in science. And I'm not naturally inclined to science. It's not something I was interested in, and I think I would have naturally started asking about the things I was interested in as a kid, and instead, I got to hear about what he was interested in. And so that's one of the things that really being an open-ended question, instead of just saying, I saw that you had a visitor today in the newsletter. How was that? Good, right? But when you say, tell me something you did, you'll hear from them, and it may not be whatever you thought they might talk about from what you had a heads-up about, but then you can also follow up. And I thought that's so interesting that your friend brought a turtle for show and tell or that you learned how to evaluate this piece of literature, you know, whatever it is that they did in class that kind of piqued their interest. And sometimes they'll tell you things that didn't necessarily pique their interest, but they're remembering it, right? Which if they're remembering something they did and it was something academic, that's pretty cool. That means that it stuck. If it's just something they did because it was, you know, something they swung on the monkey bars or they jumped off the swing, you know, anything like that, that's still something to pay attention to because your child is telling an accomplishment to you. So whether, again, whether you think it's an accomplishment or something academic enough or not, they think it is. And so you want to make sure that you're reinforcing, that you're listening to them, and that you're excited about the things that they're excited about. So again, I talked about how to kind of partner with your child's teacher. So there are probably weekly newsletters, whether it's coming from just the teacher or from the school, which you're probably getting both. So use those things to kind of look at the pictures. We at Holy Spirit use Seesaw. And so there are pictures or activities that are posted on Seesaw. Look at that and use that as a prompt to ask more, to elaborate. I will say, too, though, if in the car you're asking your child questions and you say, give me three, and they give it to you, and then they stop, just let it go. You still have dinner time, bedtime, bath time, whatever other time that you could then follow up with some other questions, but you don't need to get it all at once. Remember that kids, and again, this is from really young all the way even through middle school, their attention span is small, a lot smaller than ours. So they're going to be done talking about their day a lot faster than you will, and they need a break. So they do need time to be able to come home and play, watch a quick show, read, practice piano, whatever it is that they kind of usually need to do. Give them a break even from talking about their day. So say, give me three, let that kind of go, and then use that information or whatever you've learned from Seesaw or from the newsletters to kind of springboard a little bit later to ask another question. Hey, I saw that as a class you guys are doing this project. What is your project? What are you working on? What do you like about that? And again, ask those open-ended questions. The more you can give them voice, the more of an answer you're going to get rather than do you like it, yes or no. That's not really going to tell you anything. Also remember, too, that they need wait time. We can't get an answer from them right away. You need to wait just a little bit, maybe even count to ten. It feels like forever, but it will give them time to think and then be able to respond. If they're thinking that you want something right away, they'll give you an answer right away, but it may not be an actual answer. I think I fall into the trap, too, of asking questions I already know the answer to. Like, you know, again, with the yes and no, like, did you have a good day, yes, like, you know, or, you know, did you have pizza for lunch? Well, I know you had pizza for lunch. I'm just trying to get you to talk to me. So, I think using these kind of open-ended, tell me something good, not so good, and that you did, I don't know those answers already, so I don't have any way to fill in the blanks or to prompt her to give me the answer I'm looking for. And if I use the wait time and give her a chance to think about it and answer that, who knows what she'll say, you know? And that's really, as parents, what we want. I want to know what she thinks and what she feels, not what I want her to feel and want her to think. So, I think these are great strategies. Yeah, exactly. And even now, you'll have something to bring to a parent conference, right? So, when you're sitting talking to the teacher, you have some things to say, oh, yeah, I heard about that you did this in class, or I heard about this friend. It brings, you actually have something to bring to the table also, which is really great because all teachers want that too. They want the back and forth. They don't want to be the only ones delivering information. They want to hear your side of what your child is telling you as well. So, well, that's great. I love being able to talk about this. I know we all want to hear about our child's day. We want to be able to continue that conversation, hear more than just, you know, recess and lunch were great, or I played with this friend, and that's it. We want to hear more details. So, I hope this helps. So, again, it's give me three, tell me something good about your day, tell me something not so good about your day, and tell me something you did. So, I hope that helps in getting to find out your child's day, and hopefully you'll join us next time for our next episode. Thanks for joining That's the Spirit, and have a great day.