What to ask the children when they come back from school: 4 unconventional questions and what not to ask.

We all remember that when we were young, on our return home, we were asked: how was school today?

How was school today?

How was school today? I think that everyone, if we look back with the thought, remember to have answered distractedly: well, maybe tasting the first bites of lunch.

Inside that quick good, sometimes there was the hunger and the simple desire to have lunch, while other times there was the desire to go beyond and forget what, of tiring or unpleasant, had been experienced at school.

That they were difficulties in the understanding of concepts, labors relational with teachers or with companions, impossibility to be welcomed for what one was, all that converged and lived in a single word: well.

I believe that even today, many children and young people bury themselves behind the same word, not to enter into a difficult and controversial conversation, which would lead them to expose aspects of their day sometimes difficult to understand and manage, even for them.

As parents we are called to try to scratch the surface and look beyond, to enter on our toes into the heart of our children’s daily experience, in the place where they live the hardships, the defeats, the tension to improve and grow, to build and build, But where there are also achievements and the desire to create, along with friendships and relationships.

On tiptoe I say, simply because, fortunately, not everything is revealed to us and the children keep their otherness from us; Entering into everyday life, however, is fundamental to build with them a relationship that grows, increasingly in line with the age of children and where children and young people do not feel controlled but rather accompanied and called to give their best on their journey.

That’s why the question was how did it go at school today? can be replaced with more challenging questions, suitable to stimulate our children to tell what is in the pot, that is what they are creating and on which they are focusing and engaging, what they really care about, what they believe in and what they want for their today and tomorrow.

What not to ask our children when they come back from school.

Before I put in line the most significant questions we can ask our children at the fateful moment of returning from school, I want to stop attention for a moment on what I think is useless to ask.

Questions that are not only unproductive, but also misleading and do not do justice to our children because they accustom them to focus attention on things totally out of their control.

Questions of the type: how did it go in that subject and what your classmates took, what you did/said, how was the test done...

Knowing all these facets does not add anything to what we know about our children, it does not help us to know them better and above all it does not help them to know themselves better and to think about what they could become.

Shifting the focus of the speech from children to their peers, to other families, to what others have said or done, leads only to look in the wrong place, as in the famous story where a woman after losing a coin at home was seen looking for it in the courtyard and asked: Why do you seek out what you have lost in the house? He replied: because there is more light outside.

Make no mistake, comparisons are unproductive and gossip is not dialogue.

Building a dialogue with our children means first of all listening to them in an active and participatory way, being and showing themselves, really interested in them, even leaving the phone and TV off, in moments dedicated to confrontation.

Little obvious things? Not really since often finding a moment of silence becomes difficult and finding the space to truly listen, it may seem too demanding.

If we are able to create this space, we will end up discovering that the children know how to fill it with their stories, their considerations, feelings and emotions and this is what we should care about, not insignificant details.

What to ask children when they come back from school:

questions to build awareness and well-being.

Ask the children a question to leave to intelligence the possibility of finding new ways.

If we want our children to learn from mistakes and not grow up with the idea that making a mistake is the end of everything; If we want them to discover new ways of reaching a goal and find their own way of learning, we must let them experience error as a non-marginal part of the path.

Only those who consider the error a stage, can go beyond and not be crushed by it.

Only those who allow themselves to be wrong, they see within an evolutionary dynamic and as I repeat daily to my children: those who make mistakes learn and those who never make mistakes are firm.

So the question to ask when you return from school, can be: what did you do wrong today?

To value experience before the result.

All the men and women of value, without distinction, have arrived at relevant results, with long paths of trial and error, attempts and failures and from each failure they came out stronger and able to exclude what did not work.

Teaching children to learn from mistakes is not only functional for the school path, but also for the entire life and career trajectory. There is no success without failure.

Ask children a question that will accustom them to create solutions for themselves and others.

Solving problems, finding solutions, seeking answers are all activities that stimulate the use of intelligence in a creative way.

If then creativity is expressed through the search for useful solutions to shared problems, then the game is done: we will have taught our children something valuable, even for a future successful career.

Think about it... who is more successful in a particular field of production?

Who can give effective and creative answers to an existing problem: the founders of Amazon and Apple are an example.

A good question to ask when you come back from school is: did you solve any problems today?

And it’s a bit like saying: did you notice what was around you? Have you observed and studied the context? Have you tried? Have you tried and maybe even found solutions?

Stimulating belief and valuable, not only for children but also for parents.

Ask the children a question to invite them to be curious and profound.

Curiosity is a prerequisite not only for learning but also for growth.

We grow only by going further and beyond, only by going beyond what is already available to us.

Ask the children when they come back from school: did you ask a good question today?

It is a simple question that invites you to turn curiosity into a working method and teaches you not to be satisfied with what you have or already know.

Giving it to our children enables them not only to tell us what they have discovered during their school day, but also to tell us how actively they contributed to the work of the group, how much they enjoyed again and how much they still want to enjoy, in terms of learning.

This same question will help them to tell their relationship with teachers, not so much in terms of gossip but more in terms of substance and value: indirectly, it will come to light as a teacher knows how to involve, how to challenge the intelligence of his pupils, how it values individual work.

Ask the boys and girls a question about fatigue.

Then there is one last important question, which it is nice to ask our boys and girls when they come back from school: what couldn’t you do today?

It is a delicate question, which must be asked not to emphasize the fatigue and difficulties but rather, to help understand what are the spaces and margins of improvement that is lawful and recommended to pursue.

It is the question in which certainly converge all the things not yet accomplished, all the goals not yet achieved, all the results that with difficulty we try to pursue.

It is perhaps the most difficult question, the one in which children and young people are probably more exposed, the one that helps them to show the parts of themselves less bright and light, but that are also those that it is more valuable to share and that for us parents are decisive, to help and support our children’s journey.

The latter must remain an open question, without prepackaged or stereotyped solutions on the part of adults.

Let them tell the difficulties and find the answers or solutions to go further; This will make them feel able and, even when they do not find an immediate solution, they will learn to stay within the fatigue and to cultivate resilience, that is the ability to resist shocks, more, the ability to react to the difficulties that life will put before them.

So much stuff, so many questions to ask our children, our boys and girls of any age, on their return from school, with the knowledge that the sooner we have managed to set up this type of dialogue and the sooner our children will be accustomed to telling stories in a constructive and open way.

Just one last thing: there are no wrong questions, even when returning from school.

We teach concretely to the children, that asking questions is always an activity that builds dialogue and that asking and asking questions is lawful and constructive, let us ask questions even when it is uncomfortable for us or when the questions of the children surprise us and leave us speechless.

Building a true dialogue with your children or students is challenging and risky, it calls us to expose ourselves and prove ourselves, but it provides us with essential help in the difficult task of educating and educating ourselves.