Back To School, Lets Get Talking!

Back To School, Lets Get Talking!

By: Stacy Lloyd, MS, LMHC

Starting a new school year brings a lot of excitement and changes. Students will have new classmates, teachers, after-school activities and new experiences. Parents are tasked with balancing the family’s schedules and helping their children navigate through many firsts. And let’s be real, with fast paced changes in technology and social media, many of your kids firsts may also be firsts for you, or at the very least a first for you as a parent! 

To effectively balance your family’s schedules and help your family navigate through the many firsts of the new school year, it is so important to keep the lines of communication open.  For many families with school aged kids, it may seem like pulling teeth to get more than yes or no answers to questions.

Here is a list of 10 open ended questions to help keep the dialogue flowing all year: 

  1. Tell me about your goals for the year/ month/ week/ day? Why are these important to you? 
  2. What is something you want us to do as a family this year? 
  3. Tell me about what you have on the schedule at school this week? 
  4. What was the best part of your day? 
  5. What was the most interesting thing you learned or heard today?
  6. If you could switch seats with anyone in class, who would it be? And why?
  7. If you switched places with your teacher tomorrow, what would you teach? 
  8. Who did you eat lunch with today? -or- Who did you play with at recess? 
  9. What is different/changed between this year and last year?
  10. You seem to be handling your homework and soccer/track/drama (extra curricular activity) really well, tell me about how you are balancing everything? – Or-  What is the hardest part of balancing homework and your activity? What do you think can help?

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