What do you talk to your Dc about ?

[eyesandearsandamouth]

My DC are young 5 & 3 but I just don't feel we talk much. I feel I talk at them. Recently school sent communication about not grilling your children about how school was on the way home - gentle parenting tips - the head is a bit controlling at times. To be honest my school goer would just say 'good' anyway. I just don't know what to chat about if I can't ask about things or should I ignore that advice.

I just want to encourage more conversation. We do sit over dinner each night, but they can't eat and talk or sit still for long.

Tractors mainly, sometimes emergency vehicles but he's only 2, non verbal and he does love transport.

I think there is a difference between chatting about their days at school and grilling them about it. I think it is natural to ask if anything interesting happened in their day, what bits did they like, what were they less keen on.

Mine are 2 and 4. 2 year old just learning to talk so obvs doesn’t talk back apart from the occasional one syllable answer (what’s that ? Ball / dog etc

4 year old doesn’t stop talking ! I always ask if he’s had a good day at nursery / what he’s done, sometimes he will answer, sometimes not if tired. But we generally just chatter about anything and everything. What do you want to eat / have you seen that birdie / was xx at nursery today / what do you think about this / or even just things like drive past a shop and go through what things could we buy from that shop, does the shop sell tigers etc

Tell them about your day. What you did what you liked. Why you liked it, why you didn't.

No-one likes an inquisition. Start the conversation up from a different perspective.

Tell them about your day, they might tell you about theirs. (Still their choice if they don't. )

My two old talks about the garden and maka Pakka. My 7 year old is a chatty delight but that’s her age, keep talking to them and show an interest and It’ll come

A good tip with primary kids is to either ask if anyone got told off or was anyone naughty?? They seem to love telling us about that! The other thing is to give a ridiculous scenario and they 'correct' you with something real - Did Ella turn into a kangaroo at break? Did you teachers take you all to Tesco after lunch?

This!

Or start with a joke and challenge them to think up a funny joke for you too.

We started quite young with a conversation game at dinner time “What was the best bit about your day? what was the worst bit/funniest bit/most interesting bit?” Parents go first to model it - doesn’t have to be earth-shattering stuff. Then they’ll tell you weird random things…

Mine are a bit older now and pretty decent conversationalists (within preteen/teen moods reason! )

My DD never talked much at that age. If I did ask her how school was she reply "good" and I couldn't get much more out of her. She's still not much of a talker, if she has something to say she will but unlike most kids she's not that much of a chatterbox.

All sorts of random stuff.

'How was your day?' Has never worked though, things like 'what did you play at lunch? Did (insert name) say anything funny?' get much better answers.

In the last few days we've talked about:

How zoo keepers get sloths to poo
Why she thinks 8 should let her have a snake and how she'd care for it
Why some people are mean to other people
Whether it would be ok for her to never go to school again
What the best kind of party is
Why anyone ever thought up the idea of drinking a cows milk
Why me and her dad think it's acceptable to sleep past 7am on the weekend, she disagrees and thinks 6am is more reasonable
What the best colour is for a living room
Why she thinks we should have chicken nuggets and chips or pasta with butter and cheese for dinner everyday
Why her friends house is more fun than ours (spoiler, they have kittens)
Why I'm embarrassing
How tall she thinks she's going to be and whether I think her feet are too big or not
Why do some people like raspberries more than strawberries, they're wrong in her opinion
She gave me a long lecture on why I was wrong to suggest that reading a book is usually a quiet activity with limited talking?

DD is 7, just about to turn 8 and had an opinion or question about everything.

My children are older now but from memory I just talked as I would do to anyone. Told them what I'd been doing during the day, any funny stories, things I'd seen around the area etc

I didn't really expect them to join in necessarily, I can chat all day long

Tbh my 7 year old doesn't take a lot of coaxing to start a conversation, she talks non stop. I ask her if she has had a good day at school. The answer is usually yes and I just let her continue. I tell her about my day. We talk about potential weekend plans. My 13 year old is the polar opposite and only offers me snippets when he feels like it but I don't push. He will come to me with concerns and there have been a few over the last few years. We have had several discussions about the pandemic as he was obviously worried about it at the start and being Internet savvy (but not savvy enough to realise you should take every news story with a pinch of salt) he had worried himself. We talked age appropriately with him about it. Most recently he is worried about Russia wiping us out. He's read some things and is understandably concerned. It's good that he can talk to us when he is worried about something but damn I feel so bad for his generation. I don't remember ever being aware of the news or the world around me at that age. It was much easier to shelter kids from those things back then!

My DD (7) & DS (3) are both complete chatterboxes.
Conversations I've had with DD in the past week:
How school was?
Swimming - what was easy, what was hard?
Why the man hit our car with his (minor crash) & what will happen to our car?
Why women couldn't be actors in Tudor England?
The dead butterfly in the garden.
What presents to buy her friend.
Whether she wants to continue gymnastics
Our upcoming holiday
Why we vote & who for

With DS:
Pokemon
Diggers/Tractors
Who farted at preschool
How many poo's he's done
How he fell over & now has a plaster cast on his knee (he doesn't, it's a tiny plaster)
Lego & which ones he wants for his birthday (ie all of them)
Who to invite to his birthday party
How he's not tired & it was an awake yawn
How we can't see London from our house (we're in Somerset)
Why he doesn't want to wear goggles at swimming.

Anything & everything!