You may have become accustomed to a one-sentence, or sometimes one-word, response from your child when you ask them about their day. It may be frustrating when it seems difficult to get them to share things happening in their lives. Although there may be certain difficulties in communicating with your child, it is extremely important to foster healthy conversations between you and your child to build both trust and comfort in your relationship.
Starting fun, engaging conversations with your child will help you to build a foundation for more serious topics down the road and give you a meaningful opportunity to learn more about your child’s personality and interests. So, let’s explore some conversation starters for kids.
Questions:
- What are you most looking forward to in school this week?
- If you could have any superpower, what would you have and why?
- Imagine you have the day off from school. What would you do?
- When you grow up, what are three jobs that you might want to do?
- Who is someone in your life that you think is a superhero?
- What is your favorite thing about your teacher?
- What is one thing you learned today in school? What is one thing that you already knew? What would you like to learn about next?
- What are five things you are thankful for?
- If you could be any food, what would you be and why?
- Who is someone that you would like to help, even if you think you would be unable to?
- If you were going to start a business today, what would it be?
- What would you do with $100?
Get Grooving!
Ask your child if they have a favorite song or favorite type of music. Play the music and dance or sing along. Afterward, ask them why they chose it. What about that song or type of music do they like? How does it make them feel? If they could write a song, what would it be about? What would it sound like?
MATERIALS: phone or computer, speaker (optional)
Talk about Teamwork
Find a task that your child can do on their own that has multiple steps, such as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Tell them to pretend that you have no idea how to make the sandwich and you need them to teach you. The important part is that you should not do anything unless they explicitly tell you to do it.
For example, if they tell you to put the jelly on the bread, place the unopened jar of jelly on the unopened loaf of bread. They have not instructed you to open the bread and put a piece of it on the plate or to open the jelly and spread it on the bread with a knife. This exercise will help them to understand that details are important. It might make for a funny activity should you actually place an unopened jar of jelly on an unopened loaf of bread! If they begin to get frustrated, ask them to take a moment to imagine how they would do it and verbalizing what they see.
MATERIALS: plate, loaf of bread, jar of jelly, jar of peanut butter and butter knives
Draw Your Feelings
Ask your child to draw a picture of how they feel and describe it. This could be a color, an animal, a shape, an object or a scene with different characters. Talk with your child about what they drew and ask them what made them want to draw it. It may be helpful if you do this activity with your child and share how you feel first.
MATERIALS: paper, colored pencils, markers or pens
Starting conversations and engaging in effective communication with your child does not have to be a frustrating process. Instead, it can be creative and fun, allowing you and your child to connect in a way that they understand and can be excited about. It may also be helpful to ask your child what they would like to talk about rather than asking them a specific set of questions. Remember to actively listen and have fun chatting with your kids!
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