How to get your kids to talk

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — Asking your kid what’s new with them may sometimes result in a dreaded one-word response.

“How was school today?”

“Fine.”

So, how do you engage with your children while still giving them some independence?

Jessica Cooke is a PhD student at the department of psychology at the University of Calgary.

She said asking open-ended questions may help get the ball rolling.

“So maybe asking them something like ‘Tell me what you did today at school’.”

What if your child still responds with “nothing”?

Some parents may accept that as a response, others may try to push for an answer, but research has shown kids, especially developing teenagers may find that to be intrusive.

“With teenagers, I think it’s really important to show interest in what they’re interested in. So, for some kids it’s not [about] school at that age, so you might want to ask instead about their interests outside of school to get conversations rolling,” Cooke said.

She added that communication is a two-way street, and that across all ages, studies have shown that higher parental communication can protect kids against developing low self-esteem or poor academic achievements.