Today’s tip is not accepting one word answers. Here is a typical conversation between a parent and child:

The child gets home from school and walks in the door,

Parent, "How was school today?"
Child, "Fine."

Parent, "What did you learn?"
Child, "Nothin."

Parent, "You didn’t learn ANYTHING today, you just sat in your chair ALL day?"
Child, "Idunno." (Notice this response is a bundle of 3 actual words)

At this point, the parent becomes frustrated and drops the conversation.

Result: Child Wins!!

What I teach parents to do is to dig for information without nagging. They learn how to set up the questions in a better format so that the child must respond with more than a 1 word response.

Here are some keys to avoiding the 1 Word Response Trap:

1) Ask specific questions – the question above is too general

2) Give your child something to anchor too – The question needs to
allow the child to think back to a certain event during the day

3) Always have a follow up question

4) Don’t nag by repeating the same question over and over

By planning ahead and having a series of questions to ask your child, and not accepting 1 word replies, you will find that over time, conversations with your child become a lot easier and much more enjoyable.

This entry was posted on December 31, 2008 at 1:18 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Parenting Tips by Denny Strecker No Comments Yet