What did you do at school today, darling?

I don’t remember.

I don’t want to tell you.

Nothing.

I did a poo in my pants. [giggles]

Does this sound familiar?

I rarely ask anymore. I tend to just ask ‘Did you have a good day?’ and she usually nods or sometimes she will say she had a brilliant day and volunteer why. Sometimes she’ll remember something and tell me about it, like the other day when she was obviously very proud to have been a special helper (taking the register round to the school secretary). Now and then I’ll try ‘What was the best thing that happened today?’, but that’s pretty hit and miss and sometimes it just elicits more talk about poo and wee.

And we get the same after ballet, swimming and drama, though she does seem to be more likely to tell us or show us something she did in those than at school.

I’ve seen some children meeting their parents at school, or walking home with them talking fifteen to the dozen about all the things they did and people they played with and so on and so on. And then I’ve seen others who seem to be equally uncommunicative, so I suspect it’s just something that some children do.

But… if any of you have any tips for eliciting responses and actually finding out a bit about what our children get up to all day, that would be great. I don’t think we need chapter and verse, but the odd nugget of information that could show that she is actually enjoying it and maybe even learning something would be nice.