The school year has finally begun and you are dying to know how your child’s day went.  How was their teacher?  Were their peers nice to them? Did they find the work hard? So you ask your child and, after a long pause where you think he or she is thinking about a response, you get, “I don’t know” or “Nothing”.  You are left starving for more but you don’t know what else to ask.  And now you are just frustrated.

Getting your children to talk about their day can be challenging, especially if you want to know if he or she is experiencing stress oranxiety.  On one hand, you don’t want your child focusing only on the negative parts of the day.  We don’t want to begin the pattern of mental filtering early, after all. (Note: Mental filtering refers to the tendency to filter out the positive things and focus on the negative things, even when the positive things outweigh the negative).  It is essential to encourage balanced thinking by prompting our children to think not only about the negative parts of their day, but the highlights of their day as well.  We also don’t want to ask them close-ended questions that require them only to answer with one word (ex. “How was your day?” Good. “Did you learn anything fun?” No.).Continue reading “When you need more than “I don’t know”: The High/Low Game”