Thursday's Psychology Tips: 25 Ways to Ask Your Teen, "How Was School Today?" WITHOUT Asking "How Was School Today?"

Thought for the Day: Instead of a Psychology Trivia Question today, I chose to copy a series of questions posted on August 29th on a blog called Simple Simon and Company. I did play with their image and added colors, but this is simply their ideas which I think will be helpful for parents.  It is written by 2 stay at home moms. The author of these questions worked for about 10 years as a  middle and high school teacher in her "past" life before motherhood. She also wrote a 2nd  list of questions to ask younger children, but I chose to post these since teens are a bit harder to engage. Conversing with teenagers is an art and good questions can help! I hope this repost is useful as you start the new school year. Here are their 28 (they added a few extra ones for good measure.) questions to start conversations with teens about their day at school...

#1.  Where in the school do you hang out the most?  (Like a particular hall, classroom, parking lot, etc.)  Where in the school do you never hang out?

#2.  What would your school be better with?  What would your school be better without?

#3.  If you were a teacher what class would you teach?  What class would be the worst to teach?  Why?

#4.  What was the coolest (saddest, funniest, scariest) thing that you saw today.

#5.  Tell me one thing that you learned today.

#6.  If your day at school today was a movie what movie would it be?

#7.  Besides walking to their next classes, what else do people do in the halls in between classes?

#8.  Who do you think you could be nicer to?

#9.  What is your easiest class?  What is your hardest class?  OR  What class are your learning the most in?  What class are you learning the least in?

#10.  If they played music in the halls at school what would everyone want them to play over the loudspeaker?

#11.  If you could read minds what teachers mind would you read?  What classmates mind would you read?  Whose mind would you NOT want to read?

#12.  If today had a theme song what would it be?

#13.  Which class has your favorite group of students in it?  Which class has the worst group of students?

#14.  What do you think you should do more of at school?  What do you think you should do less of?

#15.  What are the top 3 (or 5) things that you hear people say in the halls?

#16.  What do you think the most important part of school is?

#17.  Tell me one question that you had today…even if it wasn’t answered….actually, especially if it wasn’t answered…

#18.  What class has the most cute boys/girls in it?

#19.  If an alien space ship landed at your school who would you like them to beam aboard and take back to their home planet?

#20.  Who did you help today?  Who helped you today?

#21.  If you could be invisible for the day at school what would you do?

#22.  What part of the day do you look forward to?  What part of the day do you dread?

#23.  What would you change about school lunch?

#24.  What classmate is most likely to be arrested, made president, become a millionaire, be in movies, let loose a flock of wild chickens in the library, etc.

#25.  If you had to go to only one class every day which class would it be?

#26.  Tell me one thing you read at school today.

#27.  If your day at school was an emoticon which one would it be?

#28.  What do you think your teachers talked about in the faculty room today after school?